Cold Case Colton
Cold Case Colton
Addison Fox
The most shocking Colton family secret yet is revealed!Claudia Colton has always felt different from her siblings. But the fashion designer doesn't expect a PI with knowledge of her family to show up in her tiny home town. The tall, blond stranger on her doorstep announces Claudia might not be the daughter of criminal mastermind Livia Colton…but then who is she?Widower Hawk Huntley, hot on the trail of an old kidnapping case, is stopped in his tracks by Claudia. He vows to protect her in any way possible – heart, body, and soul – as they track down the truth of her identity. But how will Claudia's hidden past – and a gun-wielding stalker – change everything?
The most shocking Colton family secret yet is revealed!
Claudia Colton has always felt different from her siblings. But the fashion designer doesn’t expect a PI with knowledge of her family to show up in her tiny Texas hometown. The tall, blond stranger on her doorstep announces Claudia might not be the daughter of criminal mastermind Livia Colton...but then who is she?
Widower Hawk Huntley, hot on the trail of a cold kidnapping case, is stopped dead in his tracks by Claudia. He vows to protect her in any way possible—heart, body, and soul—as they track down the truth of her identity. But will Claudia’s hidden past—and a gun-wielding stalker—change everything for Colton?
“I’ve only been here a few days, but it’s been long enough to know that anything Colton-related is hot gossip around town.”
Claudia sighed. “Sad truth. But still true all the same.”
“Hey.” He brushed several strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“It’s not insensitive when it’s the truth.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” Hawk traced the shell of her ear before trailing a path down the column of her throat. “But right now I’d really like to kiss you.”
“I’d really like that, too.”
The last vestiges of fear that lingered at the afternoon’s events faded as Hawk lowered his lips to hers. With his body pressed to hers and the door at her back she should have felt claustrophobic.
Trapped.
She felt anything but as she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung.
Simply clung as the touch of his hands, the warmth of his body and the sheer power of his kiss carried her away from all the pain, trouble and confusion that was life in Shadow Creek.
* * *
The Coltons of Shadow Creek:
Only family can keep you safe...
Cold Case Colton
Addison Fox
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ADDISON FOX is a lifelong romance reader, addicted to happy-ever-afters. After discovering she found as much joy writing about romance as she did reading it, she’s never looked back. Addison lives in New York with an apartment full of books, a laptop that’s rarely out of sight and a wily beagle who keeps her running. You can find her at her home on the web at www.addisonfox.com (http://www.addisonfox.com/) or on Facebook (Facebook.com/addisonfoxauthor (https://www.facebook.com/AddisonFoxAuthor/)) and Twitter (@addisonfox (https://twitter.com/addisonfox)).
For Maddie and Vivian
Two of the most wonderful young women I know.
You both own Texas-sized pieces of my heart.
Contents
Cover (#u9da19e52-beca-57c4-9d04-9498784333c0)
Back Cover Text (#uf3f1ed07-2fd1-5801-81f4-47c4b867d293)
Introduction (#u5f54bac5-d933-56b3-b360-15c6e0175c36)
Title Page (#u921c7934-a665-5704-8fba-a30e2cdf12ed)
About the Author (#u4acd1833-8ae3-5c7b-8068-8de21aeb1277)
Dedication (#uf08d65c4-b226-5d83-ac8f-1905570be578)
Chapter 1 (#u9c52cb7e-5fe3-5695-9ff2-9eb587517b7a)
Chapter 2 (#ufcdf88ec-c138-597c-98a1-6cc985022236)
Chapter 3 (#uf6c7c722-8f75-5aad-b5a8-123bfa63463f)
Chapter 4 (#ud94fdf51-443c-5a71-be99-dd00b8321378)
Chapter 5 (#u15b58038-62fe-5deb-9fd1-291250607c72)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
The random bark of a dog and a puttering truck with a rusted out muffler battled each other for prominence in the early morning air. Claudia Colton juggled a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and her keys in the other as she fumbled with the door of her boutique, Honeysuckle Road. Dog and truck faded away as she closed the door, satisfied to simply stop and stare for a moment.
On a soft sigh, she smiled at the racks that spread out before her in welcoming arcs. Bright, vivid silks and bold prints swirled among the racks, offsetting more timeless pieces in soft pastels and classic solids. Her racks spanned all sizes, hidden among them a match for every woman in Shadow Creek, from the petite to the curvaceous and every iteration in between.
“It may be a long way from Fifth Avenue, but it’s mine.”
Shadow Creek, Texas, was a far cry from New York City, but she was determined to make it feel like home.
Bound and determined.
All the work that had gone into renovating the store and the grand opening preparations had diverted her mind for the past few months, and there was something deeply gratifying to see the fruits of her hard work.
Fruits that bore sashes, sequins and the occasional well-placed bow.
And if the life she’d attempted to divert herself from was still a raging mess, well, at least she had a few pretty things to look at while she dealt with it all.
She flipped the lock behind her back and headed for her workroom. Many of the designs at Honeysuckle Road were her own and she’d taken great joy in bringing her visions to life, but no vision quite compared with the wedding dress that had come to life on her dressmakers’ form over the past few weeks.
Claudia had been equally touched and excited when her brother Thorne’s fiancée, Maggie, asked her to make her wedding dress. And she was fast becoming a nervous wreck that the small details she’d envisioned for the dress wouldn’t be completed in time for the wedding.
Wasn’t that a twist?
Maggie was an easygoing bride with an exacting, seamstress-zilla.
Which meant Claudia’s days were filled with quite a few early hours as she worked to finish up the dress.
That also gave her a chance to collect her thoughts. While getting Honeysuckle Road up and running had been a pleasant diversion, it couldn’t change the realities of what she’d run from in New York, or her current situation here in Shadow Creek.
An ex-boyfriend who’d increasingly made the city she loved a nightmare of dark streets, threatening messages and late-night harassments.
And the small town she’d grown up in that seemed to exist in a perpetual state of fear of her mother. Livia’s recent escape, ten years after being put away for multiple lifetimes, had once again gripped the town in her thrall.
Neither situation was tenable.
But what to do about it?
Claudia had innately understood her mother was different. It wasn’t just the unique characteristics that made up her family, from a series of relationships that had produced Livia Colton’s six children. Nor was it simply the large estate that had provided the backdrop to her childhood. No, it was the odd, nearly reverent way the entire town of Shadow Creek treated her mother.
Livia Colton was the town’s patron saint and their resident demon, and everyone treated her with the softest of kid gloves. Livia could do no wrong, even when others suspected her of the worst sorts of crimes.
Theft. Human trafficking. Murder.
Which had left her children to puzzle through the realities of their mother. Was Livia Colton some misunderstood, benevolent benefactor or some demon temptress who used kindness as one more tool in her psychopathic arsenal?
Claudia had spent much of her childhood wondering, only to have the truth finally come out the year she turned sixteen. Her mother’s crimes—all she’d been suspected of and more—had been exposed and she’d been soundly convicted by the State of Texas, sentenced to spend the rest of her life—as well as four more—in prison.
At the time and in all the years since, Claudia had tried desperately to feel some sense of sadness, or remorse or even relief that she and her siblings finally had some answers.
But none came.
Instead, she continued to struggle with this odd sense of indifference that kept her mother at an emotional distance. Separate, somehow, as if they’d never really had a mother-daughter bond at all. Claudia lived with the shame of that—that strange, unapologetic apathy—and used the guilt as a way to push herself forward.
She didn’t feel it for her siblings. Nor did she feel it for Mac, the man who’d practically raised her. So maybe there was hope for her, after all.
Claudia ran a hand over the slender, gathered shoulder strap of the dress. Her brother would marry the woman who wore this dress. The wedding would be hosted on Mac’s ranch. In addition to Thorne, the groom, all her siblings would be there.
Joy filled her at the thought of them all being together and in that, Claudia knew there was strength. Bonds that were forged in truth and honesty and love.
And in that joy, she felt no guilt. No empty ties. Not even a trace of sadness. Instead, she knew she was home.
It couldn’t come at a better time, she thought as she fiddled with the ruching on the shoulder strap, seeking to match its folds to its twin. After nearly ten years in a Texas prison, Livia had found a way to escape.
Her mother’s extensive network of contacts had helped engineer the escape, but it was the events that came after—including the kidnappings of Claudia’s nephew and then Mac just last month—that had proven just what sort of people her mother had surrounded herself with.
Her brother Knox had spent a tense time in an emotional standoff that started with Cody’s kidnapping and ended in the death of one of Livia’s minions. Although her nephew was back, safe and unharmed, neither Claudia nor her siblings had fully rested easy since. The fact that the kidnapping had been the byproduct of an old enemy of her mother’s, using the boy as a pawn to get money Livia would never have paid, had only added to the horror of the situation.
And Mac. Her heart still leaped into her throat at the thought they’d nearly lost him. Livia’s cruelty—and the pain she’d exacted on her third husband—had contributed to the man’s plot against Mac. Thank God they had him back, safe and sound. And through it all, Maggie and Thorne had found each other, as well. A challenging way to begin any relationship, but one that was firm and solid all the same.
One that had also reinforced another truth. Her family needed her and she needed them. And with her mother’s disappearance going on nearly four months, she couldn’t deny her fervent hope the woman would never come back. Livia’s disappearance would finally give them all much-needed peace.
The prison break had proven her mother had established her influence far and wide. But the one thing, if she knew her mother at all, was that there was little Livia Colton wouldn’t do to avoid going back to prison.
Life was calmer without her mother’s presence. That had been as true ten years ago as it was now. And in the months she’d been back in Shadow Creek, she’d had the opportunity to reforge bonds with her siblings. To build an even closer one with Mac. He was still the most wonderful father figure and her time away hadn’t changed their relationship.
Claudia ran a hand down the pale silk of Maggie’s gown, the subtle fall of material plunging from the bodice in a dramatic, almost Grecian sweep. The suggestion of a goddess fit Maggie to a T and her future sister-in-law had been in love with the design from the start.
Now to stop woolgathering and finish it.
She settled her coffee on the edge of her station, far away from any material, and focused on today’s work.
The bustle.
Claudia ran her fingertips over the silk, gathering large folds and pinning them to the areas she’d premarked with small pins. Fold by fold, the bustle came together, the elegant weight forming and reshaping the gown in her hands.
What felt like only moments later Claudia heard a different sort of bustling behind her. “Oh. Oh, wow.”
She turned to find Evelyn Reed, employee number two of Honeysuckle Road and the woman Claudia fondly thought of as her partner in crime.
“What do you think?” She took a few steps back and reached for her coffee, frowning when she realized it had gone cold.
Evelyn already had a fresh cup out of a holder, extended in Claudia’s direction. “I think Thorne’s eyes are going to pop out of his head. We haven’t had a bride this bedecked in Shadow Creek since the Thompson wedding of 2001.”
“Sugar Thompson?”
“One and the same.” Evelyn nodded, walking around the dress, her gaze sharp as she took in the gown from head to toe.
As Claudia recalled, Sugar Thompson’s marriage hadn’t lasted long, nor had union two and three. Last she’d heard the woman was off to California to make her name in Hollywood and Claudia hoped Sugar found what she was looking for.
Shadow Creek wasn’t for everyone. Hell, she’d believed herself well and gone, so it was a surprise to realize how the town was growing on her as an adult.
“Claudia?”
“Hmm?” Claudia looked up from her musings, unwilling to even mention Sugar’s failed marriages in front of the dress. “You see anything I missed, Eagle Eye?”
“Not a single thing. This dress is amazing. The only worry is that Thorne’s not going to make it through the ceremony once he sees his bride coming toward him in this. Between the wedding and Maggie’s pregnancy, Thorne has been floating about five feet off the ground.”
“I could say the same about his daddy and the dress you’re going to wear.”
Evelyn’s dark skin flashed with a decided blush as she busied herself once again around the dressmaker form. Claudia had recently settled in on the idea that Evelyn needed to make a move on Mac—or at least show her interest—but Evelyn had remained steadfast in her reticence.
“My dress is age and station appropriate.” Evelyn’s voice was muffled behind the dress, where she bent over to inspect the bustle.
“What station is that?”
“A widow in her fifties with two grown children, two grandchildren and one more on the way.”
Claudia tapped her friend on the shoulder and waited until Evelyn stood, her petite frame still only reaching Claudia’s shoulder. Waited another moment until Evelyn looked her in the eye.
“You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman who deserves to be happy. Joseph Mackenzie is an amazing man. He practically raised me.”
Evelyn rested a gentle hand against Claudia’s cheek. “A ringing testament to just how amazing he is.”
“Amazing.” Claudia laid her hand over Evelyn’s before going in for the kill. “And as stubborn and shy as you. I swear, the sparks practically erupt when you two get within ten feet of each other.”
Evelyn dropped her hand and busied herself with putting her keys into her purse. “We saw each other once.”
“Twice, including the day Mac stopped in here to drop off lunch.” Claudia popped the lid on the fresh cup of coffee. “There were sparks, I tell you.”
“Old people don’t shoot off anything but gas.” Evelyn wagged a finger as if to emphasize her point before she beelined toward the front counter. “Sparks are for the young.”
Claudia wasn’t so sure about that but she was a woman who knew when and how to pick her battles. Even better, she knew how to bide her time.
She might be stuck in the middle of her own personal dry spell, but there was no way she was giving up on making Evelyn and Mac see just how perfect they were for each other.
* * *
Hawk Huntley tossed a six-dollar tip down on his nine-dollar breakfast at the Cozy Diner and figured he’d still gotten a damn fine deal. The hearty steak and eggs would hold him nearly all day, but it was the side of gossip that had proven even more filling than the prime Texas beef.
He’d arrived in Shadow Creek the night before last and was surprised by how quickly the town gossips were willing to bend his ear. In his experience, most small towns protected their own, but one mention of the Colton family and he got an earful.
He had to play things carefully, but a well-placed question about how he was looking for an old military buddy, River Colton, had done the trick. Hawk knew he needed to work fast because if word found its way back to River that a man he didn’t know was using him to pump the local gossip mill, he’d have hell to pay.
But he needed a sense of things before he could put his plan into motion.
He needed all the information he could find on Livia Colton and her children.
“Now, don’t you go forgetting about our meatloaf special tonight.” The waitress who’d proven so attentive throughout breakfast winked at him from the other side of the counter. “I’ll see to it you get an extra slice.”
“That’s awfully kind of you.”
Based out of Houston, Hawk wasn’t a native Texan but he’d learned early how to adopt the local lingo and attitude. He was a chameleon, his wife had always told him. A man who could fit in and adapt to any situation.
All but one situation, Hawk knew. Losing her wasn’t something a man adapted to. And widower was a suit that even after four years refused to fit.
His waitress picked up the check. “I’ll get you some change.”
“None needed.”
The woman’s eyes lit up at that, brighter than when she was flirting, and Hawk figured he’d best get to his plans for the day. There was no way Patty Sue was keeping her morning conversation with the stranger who’d rolled into Shadow Creek quiet for long.
He headed out of the diner and walked down Main Street. His B&B was at one end of town but it hadn’t taken him more than a few minutes to traverse the town square to reach the diner and, by his calculations, it would be about two more minutes to arrive at his final destination. The Honeysuckle Road boutique.
All the work of the past few months led straight to that front door.
Although he prided himself on being a good PI, Hawk had found his calling working cold cases. To give a family closure—something he’d never been fortunate enough to receive—had gone a long way toward making Jennifer’s death a situation he could live with.
Nothing could erase her memory and no case could bring her back, but if he could give other families the blessed relief that came from knowledge, he could take some solace from the endless questions that still filled his own mind.
“Honeysuckle Road.” He whispered the words as he walked toward the small storefront. Two large windows flanked the front door, but unlike the other businesses that lined Main Street, from the diner, to the drugstore, to a feed store that looked to do a brisk business, these windows were full of vibrant jewel tones and items that screamed “haven for women.”
He might have only been married for three years, but he’d dated Jennifer for two before that and had grown up with two sisters. Women loved color and shape and texture and design and if he wasn’t mistaken, Honeysuckle Road offered all those things and a little something else.
A big, warm welcome that said everyone belonged.
While Patty Sue might have been a bit hesitant to speak about Livia Colton in anything but a hushed whisper, she’d been practically gleeful as she described the new boutique opened by Livia’s daughter Claudia.
A bona fide New Yorker, Patty Sue had said reverently as she described Claudia, who’d left Shadow Creek to go to fashion school in Manhattan. The woman knew how to design clothes, match accessories and put together an outfit any woman would be proud to wear. But the clincher, to Hawk’s mind, was Patty Sue’s description of Claudia’s designs. Claudia Colton made clothes for real women.
Hawk had no idea at the time what that could possibly mean, but now as he looked at the clothing in the window, he suspected it had something to do with a palette of designs that fit women of all shapes and sizes.
And as a man who appreciated women in all shapes and sizes, Hawk decided to like Claudia Colton on the spot.
Pushing through the door, he let his eyes accustom to the darker interior, lit by a wall of soft lights that gave the boutique a warm glow.
He should feel awkward. Or at least ready to turn in his man card, but somehow he felt neither of those things. Instead, all he had was a deep-seated curiosity of how a person could make a room feel so simple yet so rich at the same time.
Since taking this case and narrowing in on the daughter of Livia Colton, Hawk had imagined a cold, calculating woman, much in the same vein as her mother. But the deep colors and rich fabrics and warm, welcoming environment flew in the face of all that.
A pretty, petite woman came out from behind the counter. He got a sense of competence and feminine grace, along with a subtle curiosity as to what he was doing in a fashion boutique at ten in the morning. “You look lost.”
Funny words since he’d felt lost for the past four years. Lost until this case involving Claudia Colton had fallen right into his lap.
The mystery—a child stolen from her birth mother over a quarter century ago—had gripped him for some reason. Those icy fingers of awareness that always ran up and down his spine when he caught a case that moved him had been in full evidence with this one, yet there’d been something more.
Maybe it was the awareness he and Jennifer had been cheated out of their own family and happy-ever-after. Or maybe it was the feeling that she was pushing him toward this case.
He’d always loved the mystery of a cold case, but mystery had turned to mission when he lost his wife. If he was able to help others find answers, in some small way he believed it helped find one for Jennifer, too.
“Sir?” The woman came out from behind the main counter, her smile gentle. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry. Good morning, ma’am. And yes, I think you just might be able to.”
“What can I do, then?”
“I’d like to speak with Claudia Colton.”
Raw curiosity replaced the gentle smile, but she asked no further questions. Instead, she simply nodded. “I’ll just go get her.”
* * *
Claudia reached for the cup of coffee Evelyn had brought in earlier, surprised to realize it had gone cold as she’d once again wrapped herself up in Maggie’s dress. The bustle was coming along nicely, the hidden hooks she’d begun to sew in matching to the precise places she’d pinned up earlier.
Standing, Claudia scrutinized the lines of the dress and the way the gathered material arced into precise folds, neatly pulled up in those small hooks. She hadn’t designed many wedding gowns all the way to completion, but had always loved the process of sketching out all the different ways a woman could attire herself to walk down the aisle. Maggie’s trust in her was both humbling and satisfying, but it was actually seeing the design come to life before her eyes that gave her a strong sense of pride.
Mac had been the one to suggest New York first. He knew her love of fashion and had freely indulged her madness for magazine subscriptions and sketch pads. But it had been the sewing machine he’d bought her shortly after she’d moved into his home that had clinched it.
A fashion mind needs to go where the fashion-minded are, he’d said to her. Just before he pulled one of the thick warm blankets that perpetually lay over the family room couch off the large box that housed her Singer Studio model. The machine had brought endless hours of bliss and madness, frustration and a special sort of creative delight that nothing else in life could quite compare to. She and her Singer were one, the machine an extension of her vision and her dreams.
And Mac had understood that, better than anyone else she’d ever met.
She tossed a fond glance toward the machine’s place of honor in her workroom, right near the window that flooded her studio with light. The best gift she’d ever received.
The knock had her glancing up, breaking through the weight of memories that had seemed to haunt her all morning.
“Yes?”
Evelyn’s breath caught as she took in the dress. “You’ve been busy. And it looks even more amazing than it did a few hours ago.”
“It’s not done yet.”
“Maybe not, but you’re well on your way.” Evelyn waved her hand in a forward motion. “Which means it’s a good time for a quick break and a moment with the gorgeous man standing out front.”
The smile suffusing Evelyn’s face faded almost instantly, a match for the immediate sinkhole that opened in Claudia’s stomach. “Who’s here?”
“A man’s here. What’s wrong?”
He found me. He found me. He found me. The words beat a rapid tattoo in her brain, freezing her breath in her throat.
“Claudia?”
She forced herself to take a breath, her words a whisper when she finally spoke. “What does he look like?”
Even as she asked the question, all she could picture in her mind’s eye was the suave cut of a suit jacket, the artful wave of mahogany hair and dark brown eyes that could go nearly black in anger. Manicured hands and Italian loafers were simply fashionable window dressing when the package underneath was jealous, vengeful and, as of the past six months, increasingly dangerous.
“Tall. Dark blond hair that was likely all-the-way-blond when he was a boy. Sexy blue eyes.”
It was the blond and blue reference that finally penetrated, tugging at the twisted knots of her stomach. “Blue eyes?”
“Blue eyes like a Texas sky, I might add.” Evelyn’s own eyes narrowed. “But that has no bearing on the ghost that just walked over your grave. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Claudia willed her galloping pulse to calm, breathing in and out of her nose. She’d seen Mac gentle his horses with the soft tones of his voice, never sure if they could understand him yet always fascinated when they seemed to. She willed that soft voice into her own mind, trying desperately to find the equilibrium that had just been snatched away.
Trying even more desperately to erase the haunting image of Ben Witherspoon from her mind.
Chapter 2 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
Hawk knew precious little about the world at large. He wasn’t a fashionable man, nor was he particularly concerned with fancy cars or big houses. He cared little for power and cared even less for the trappings of wealth.
But he knew people.
And the woman who stepped out of the back of the Honeysuckle Road boutique wore a haunted look that had no place on a random Thursday morning.
“Miss Colton?”
She gathered herself quickly, that troubled look fading as if it had never been, but Hawk made note of it, regardless. “Yes, how can I help you?”
“My name’s Hawk Huntley. I’d like a word with you, if I may.”
“About?”
Hawk glanced at Evelyn, hovering in the back of the shop. Although her gaze was averted, he had no doubt the woman was on high alert. “It’s a private matter.”
Claudia Colton followed his gaze before hers hardened. “Have we met before?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, then, whatever it is, we can discuss it here.”
She had a spine, he’d give her that. And from the photos of her that he’d reviewed online, he’d admittedly expected a bit more spunk and fire. All the more reason the frightened look she’d worn when she’d entered the shop had been a surprise.
“Your call.” It was her call, but Hawk couldn’t help thinking that she’d be sorry the moment he told her his reasons for being there.
What surprised him even more was how sorry he was to be the bearer of bad news. He’d taken the case to help the Krupid family find answers. Although it had taken him a while to work backward through a quarter century of empty threads and the sheer passage of time, it hadn’t changed his willingness to work their case or try to help them.
Bit by bit, he’d combed through the leads that had brought him to Claudia Colton’s door, each one a deliberate step forward.
How humbling, then, to realize the journey might only be beginning.
“How well do you know your mother?”
Her big gray eyes widened before narrowing quickly. “You’re here about my mother?”
“In part.”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning, then. Who are you?”
Hawk produced a card and handed it over. “I’m a private investigator. I have an office in Houston and I’ve been working on a case for the Krupid family for the past few months.”
He deliberately tossed out the Krupid name, curious to see if it registered, but Claudia remained unaffected as she glanced up from the card.
When she said nothing, he continued on. “They lost a daughter many years ago.”
Although confusion stamped her features, the wariness that had ridden her gaze at his arrival had faded in full. “I’m sorry for their loss, Mr. Huntley, but how does that have anything to do with me or my mother?”
“You’re aware of your mother’s ties to the skin trade?”
A flicker of something crossed her face, then vanished nearly as fast as it arrived. “Yes.”
“The Krupids believe their daughter was a part of your mother’s business, enslaved into prostitution.”
He’d expected anger. Perhaps even a bit of denial. What he never expected were the clear signs of remorse and sadness. They filled her face in sympathetic lines and spilled over in the gentling of her voice. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but my mother ruined many lives. More than I’m sure we can ever fully fathom.”
“You’re aware of your mother’s crimes?”
“Of course. I was a teenager when she went to jail, but I’m well aware of what she’s capable of. Worse, I’m aware of what she’s done.”
From her ties to sex trafficking, to the politicians she’d kept in her pocket, to the tight rein she had over most everything illegal in central Texas, Livia Colton had done enough damage for five lives. Even today, there were rumors she’d only been convicted for about a third of what she was actually responsible for, including several murders that remained unsolved.
Yet even with that knowledge, Hawk was surprised by Claudia’s quiet acceptance.
The still figure captivated him and he paused a moment to simply observe her. She was a beautiful woman. Tall and voluptuous, she had blond hair that cascaded down over her shoulders in a golden glow, matched to gray eyes that could knock a man to his knees. She had a sophistication and grace about her—a refinement, really—that carried her beyond the simplicity of her current situation.
She was a diamond in a town that had very little polish on it. And if he weren’t mistaken, Claudia Colton’s shine came from who she was and the life she’d built for herself, not the life she was born into.
How did someone like this come from a woman like Livia Colton? Although he was still in college when the infamous woman’s crimes had come to light, Hawk could remember the trial. The hunt for answers. And the relatively few details that had ultimately come to light for a woman purported to have such deep roots in criminal activity.
Those details had remained equally sketchy as he began investigating the Krupids’ case. The only reason he’d even connected the Krupid family and the death of their daughter to Livia Colton had been almost a sheer accident. But once he’d made the connection, every line he’d tugged started in the same spot.
Shadow Creek.
The small town nestled in the Texas Hill Country boasted acres of farmland and some of the prettiest land in the entire state. It was also where Livia Colton’s six children had been raised and often made their home.
He’d done his research on all of them. Six siblings, all seemingly fathered by different men. Children who’d grown up in the shadow of a powerful mother and her shady life. Heirs who’d been abandoned by the town, left to fend for themselves when the truth of their mother’s crimes came to light.
Claudia was a product of that. And, Hawk pulled her details from memory, she’d hightailed it out of Shadow Creek at the first opportunity. The moment she turned eighteen, Claudia headed for New York City, earning her degree before starting work in the fashion industry. Her return to Texas was recent and, from what he could see, something she’d embraced.
Yet something didn’t add up.
Why was she back? The young woman’s return to Shadow Creek coincided with her mother’s prison break earlier in the year. And her reunion with her family seemed to have a permanence, especially since she’d become the newest proprietor on the busiest street in Shadow Creek.
“I’m afraid I still don’t know how to help you, Mr. Huntley. Those crimes of my mother’s were put to bed over a decade ago.”
“Do you honestly think the police uncovered everything there was to find?”
“Maybe not, but I hardly have the answers on where they should look.”
“Maybe you do.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve been working this case for the Krupid family for several months now. They want to find answers. They want closure and the chance to still provide for their daughter, Annalise.”
That gray gaze had shuttered, her voice brisk and businesslike. “But I still don’t see how that affects me. Nor, I’m afraid to say, do I understand how her parents can possibly provide for a woman who passed many years ago.”
“By taking care of her child.”
Claudia shook her head. “Now you’re talking in riddles. Whatever my mother was, she wasn’t someone who killed innocent babies, Mr. Huntley. I’m afraid your leads have gone cold.”
He moved in, just a few steps but it was enough to have her eyes going wide, her mouth dropping in a small O. He lowered his voice, unwilling to share every private detail in earshot of her employee.
“If I’m right, and I believe I am, Livia Colton didn’t kill the baby. She took her and told everyone she was hers.”
“I think we’d have known if my mother stole a baby.”
The words were pointed fact, but Hawk didn’t miss the thread of understanding beneath them. Nor did he miss the light quaver in her voice that ensured whatever he said next wasn’t going to be a complete surprise.
“You’re the baby, Ms. Colton. Your mother is Annalise Krupid.”
* * *
“I’m what?”
Claudia had seen her mother pull a fainting spell several times throughout her life. Always dramatic, it was an act sure to bring several people running toward the delicate-boned woman with the features of an angel. She’d marveled at each occurrence, always surprised by the effectiveness of her mother’s show.
And up until now, she’d never had the urge to do the same.
But if there was ever a time to get a case of the vapors, this would have to be it.
“If my suspicions are correct, you’re Annalise Krupid’s daughter, Ms. Colton.”
“That’s impossible.”
Was it impossible? The question whispered over her senses, even as she caught sight of herself in the framed mirror that took up space behind the checkout counter. She was a big woman—her five-foot-ten frame and solid bone structure at decided odds with the delicate frame of her mother.
Claudia loved her body, but that hadn’t come easy. She’d spent far too many of her teenage years comparing herself to her mother’s small, willowy frame. A frame that good, old-fashioned biology had embedded in the genes of her sisters, Leonor and Jade. Claudia had always been the outlier. And it hadn’t been until she’d discovered fashion, and all the ways to find clothes and makeup, shoes and accessories to highlight every body type, that she’d come to love who she was.
No, she’d never be a waif like her sisters. But she could strut herself with the best of them and she had come to adore the way clothing clung to her hips and rear like a lover’s caress.
It had been at the heart of her focus for Honeysuckle Road and the core sensibility of her designs while living in New York. Every woman was beautiful. True fashion and all its artistry was about making every woman shine.
“Is it really impossible, Ms. Colton?”
The tantalizing belief that she might be someone else—that all the times growing up she’d questioned if she fit into her family might have been for a reason—were thoughts she needed to shut down.
She was a Colton. She’d been one for twenty-six years and in a matter of moments she was ready to throw that all away?
“Of course it is. I’ve lived here my whole life. I have a family—brothers and sisters—and—” She broke off, suddenly aware those things had very little bearing on how she came to actually be a Colton.
“Look, Mr. Huntley, it’s just not possible. For all my mother was, or is,” she quickly corrected herself, “she’s not a kidnapper of infants. Besides, why kidnap one to then raise it on your own? My mother had four children before me and never had a problem carrying a baby to term.”
“Maybe she saw something in you?”
“Another mouth to feed?”
“She’s a wealthy woman,” Hawk shot back, smooth and easy. “I hardly think that would have been a deterrent, do you?”
Nothing was a deterrent to Livia Colton when the woman set her mind on something. Claudia had seen that enough times in her life to know it as fact. More the point, she’d always sensed her mother had led multiple lives, anyway. There was the mother who raised them all, rarely present. On the occasions when she had been around, she’d exhibited a showy, over-the-top affection for her children.
Then there was the Livia Colton who’d contributed so much to Shadow Creek, from building a hospital to running the annual Christmas benefit for the widows and orphans fund, to even ensuring they had top-notch Little League ball fields. She’d set herself up well with the town leaders, and whether it was from a sense of benevolence or an attempt to buy off everyone in close proximity, it hadn’t changed the outcome.
Her mother had made the town a better place.
And then there was the third Livia. The one who’d helped run an enormous crime ring, who managed several nodes on the central Texas drug trade and who had no compunction about killing to get what she wanted.
Her brother Knox had already lived with that reality earlier this year when an associate of her mother’s kidnapped his son. Livia had returned from hiding to kill the man, saving her grandson. While Claudia had wanted to ascribe pure motives to Livia’s actions, Knox had sworn saving his son was a side benefit to killing the man.
Was it possible that Livia—the one who took whatever she wanted without remorse—had stolen a baby, too?
Claudia cast a glance toward the back of the store. While she trusted Evelyn implicitly and knew she’d tell her most everything later, it felt wrong, somehow, to be discussing this there, with an audience. Huntley’s accusations against her mother had far-reaching implications and at the end of the day, this was a family matter.
“Perhaps we can take this up somewhere else over a cup of coffee? You seem well-intentioned, but I hardly think this the right venue for a serious conversation. Especially when foot traffic picks up later this morning.”
She’d gotten a new shipment in the day before and she and Evelyn had spent several hours the prior evening setting up the new stock. They’d already braced themselves for a busy day when the suddenly hungry-for-fashion women of Shadow Creek wended their way into Honeysuckle Road.
A hot man with electric-blue eyes would only add to the excitement. It would also earn her a spot on the week’s hottest gossip list.
“I’m happy to discuss this somewhere else.”
“Let’s go, then. I have an errand I need to run a few towns over in Whisperwood. There’s a coffeehouse on their main street that makes a mean latte.”
“Let’s go.”
He nodded, his smile easy and simple. The small dents of his dimples were contagious and Claudia found herself smiling back before she could check herself. How she’d missed this. That simple connection with a man, fraught with nothing more than basic appreciation and a subtle sense of flirtation.
Ben had taken that from her. He’d second-guessed every kind word she said to someone of the opposite sex, whether it was a waiter, the postman or the old gentleman who’d lived in the apartment two floors above her. No one had been off-limits and over time she’d lost that sense of basic kindness and easy conversation with others.
He’d taken it all away and replaced it with fear and domination and she was so grateful she’d gotten away.
“Let me just tell Evelyn I’m running out.”
“I’ll wait by the door.”
Claudia hesitated a moment as Hawk drifted through the store, his hands by his sides as he navigated through the circular racks of clothing. A lean man, he was still big and there were several places where he turned sideways to avoid brushing along the clothes.
That simple show of respect—for her work and her store—went a long way toward calming the nerves that leaped in her stomach.
But it did nothing to drown out the dread of having one more mess, courtesy of Livia Colton, land on her front doorstep.
* * *
The SUV rumbled to life beneath them, the gentle purr of its engine humming as Claudia settled herself in the driver’s seat. Hawk had quickly acquiesced to her desire to drive and had held the door for her before moving around to the passenger side.
Evelyn had been concerned when Claudia had let her know she was making a quick trip to Whisperwood but hadn’t tried to stop her. Claudia suspected the fact Evelyn had all of the Colton men on speed dial, in addition to Mac, was what kept her from making too big a fuss. Claudia also made a point of leaving Hawk’s card behind so Evelyn had a record of who she’d gone off with.
Even as she questioned herself, Claudia couldn’t deny just how safe she felt in his presence. But it had been impulse that had her offering to drive when he’d headed out of Honeysuckle Road and beelined for his car to follow behind her. She knew she needed to be careful, but nothing about Hawk set off alarms.
Besides, she was curious about him. And while he’d had the element of surprise on his side, she gained significant home court advantage being in her car with her as driver. So she’d offered to drive, pleased when he’d accepted.
The man was a mystery—tall and lean, stoic and enigmatic—yet for all that he wasn’t threatening. She suspected he could be if he tried hard enough, but so far nothing had set off her flight response. In fact, if she were honest, all that enigmatic masculinity had her the tiniest bit captivated.
Okay, a lot captivated.
The ordeal with Ben, followed by the move, had made her swear off men for the better part of the past year. When she then added on the additional year they’d been dating, she hadn’t been actively on the market for quite a while. It was heady to feel that small spark of awareness; to look over and see a man filling her passenger seat, his long, strong fingers working the buckle of his seat belt.
Claudia waved at Evelyn where she stood inside the back doorway of the shop, her lips set in a firm line.
“She seems to have lost her fondness for me.”
“Excuse me?” Claudia put the car into gear, navigating the small lot behind the store she and Evelyn used for parking and where her deliveries came in.
“Evelyn liked me when I walked in. I think she’s changed her mind.”
“The jury’s still out on you, but I’m not worried you’re going to hurt me.” She decided to push a bit. “I’m not wrong about that, am I?”
“Of course not!” The answer flew back across the car with all the force of a rocket. “I may not be in law enforcement, but I collaborate in tandem with them for my work. I’m one of the good guys.”
She couldn’t hold back the small smile. “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, let’s hear more about my supposed past. While I’ll admit it’s an enticing thought to imagine myself not actually Livia’s daughter, I left those fantasies behind when I grew up. The imagined princess just waiting until the time is right to receive her title or the Little Orphan Annie, hanging on until her real parents can come back to find her. Both were a kid’s fantasy, nothing more.”
“You’re awfully easy about this.” His voice was low, whispering between them like smoke.
Was that a small shot of remorse in his tone?
Or was it what she wanted to hear as she tried to process the feminine awareness of him that wasn’t fading? She wanted to ignore the sensual tug but couldn’t quite hold back the subtle awareness that had her nerves on edge.
Delicious nerves, she admitted to herself before coming to a stop at the four-way that led out of town. Willing away the quick flash of desire, she turned fully to face him. “I’ve had a lot of years to come to terms with my mother and her behavior. It’s a hard thing, to think so ill of the woman who raised you, but it doesn’t make the feelings any less true. My mother hurt a lot of people.”
“It’s different, Claudia, when the person she hurt was you.”
“That’s assuming you’re right about all this.”
“I am right.”
His words hung there, stubborn and considerably more solid than whispers of smoke. Hawk Huntley wasn’t a man who liked to be wrong. Most men didn’t, and she had three brothers and a surrogate father who proved that fact each and every day.
But she sensed Hawk’s determination came from somewhere else. That it ran far deeper than stubborn male pride or a desire to be right.
“Okay, then. Convince me. Give me all your reasons why.”
“It all started with your mother’s recent escape from prison.”
The welcome sign for Shadow Creek faded from her rearview mirror as Claudia fought the grimace that threatened at Hawk’s comment. “As good a place to start as any, I suppose.”
“It’s put her back in the spotlight. I remember her case a decade ago—few who lived in Texas at the time have forgotten it—but like anything else in the 24/7 news cycle, life moves on.”
It had moved on. Wasn’t that why she’d gone to New York in the first place? To follow a dream, yes, but it had been something more.
It was a chance to start fresh. New. Unnoticed. An opportunity to start out as a nobody. In the competitive world of fashion, no one cared who you were, they just cared where you were going.
And she’d been going places.
Places that were hell and gone away from Shadow Creek, Texas.
Funny how she’d found her way back anyway.
The thought had dogged her for the past few months. She knew why she was there. Her family needed her. More, she belonged there. But she still hadn’t figured out how the one place on earth she’d believed she’d never return to had been the first place she’d run.
Home?
Or was it something more?
Her entire life people had whispered secrets about her mother. For a long time she’d managed to shut them out, simply pretending they didn’t exist. Then her world had crumbled with Ben’s increasingly menacing behavior and her brother Knox had dealt with the kidnapping of his son.
All of it had combined to pull her home.
“Your mother’s always been big news in Texas—the entire Colton family is—but it was when I saw the blog article about her that I sensed a connection.”
“What blog article? What connection?”
“The Everything’s Blogger in Texas article that came out a few months ago.”
Claudia’s mouth soured at the mention. That article had nearly destroyed her sister Leonor. The betrayal—at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, who’d run to the press with every detail she’d ever shared—had made its way on to one of the biggest gossip blogs in Texas. Although the pain of the blog had oddly been the pathway for Leonor to find her fiancé, Joshua, the article had done sufficient damage to their family.
Worse, it had destroyed Leonor’s self-confidence and sense of security.
“You mean the website that took private information obtained from my sister and broadcast it like it was some sort of fluffy infusion of cotton candy.”
Hawk nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
“Even if their ethics should be questioned to the hills and back, it didn’t diminish the information. Or the connection to the Krupid family.”
Claudia came to another four-way stop. The sign for Whisperwood indicated downtown was two miles away. “And this family thinks my mother is involved?”
“The Krupids think nothing other than the fact that their pregnant daughter went missing nearly twenty-seven years ago. I’ve not yet shared this lead as I don’t want to get their hopes up.”
There it was again. That subtle thread of remorse that was layered beneath his words. She genuinely believed he didn’t want to hurt that family.
And why did that streak of compassion strike her as so important? Deeply important, somehow.
“So walk me through this connection.”
“The Krupids tried to leave Russia for many years. During that process, their teenage daughter, Annalise, became familiar with a shady group who’d offered to spirit them out through less legal means, pretending she was a mail-order bride. She’d encouraged her parents to consider the offer, but they were wise to the scam and told her to ignore the vague promises.”
“So how did she end up here?”
“Based on the timing it looks like she got pregnant during that same time and the opportunity to come to the US through shady means suddenly seemed like a way out.”
Despite her skepticism, Claudia could see it. A young woman scared at being discovered, desperate to take the promise of a new life far away. Hadn’t she sought out the same by going to New York? Sure, her reasons were different, but she understood the desire to leave.
To escape.
“Did her parents know she was pregnant?”
“Her mother suspected, but it wasn’t until the days after Annalise vanished that her boyfriend came around looking for her. He shared the news of her pregnancy.”
“It’s a sad story, but I still don’t see what it has to do with my mother. Or me, for that matter.”
“The trail for Annalise goes cold after she was spirited out of Russia and into Mexico. She was one of your mother’s.”
“How’s that even possible?” Although she had no doubt he believed what he said, Claudia knew there were holes in Hawk’s timeline. “My mother was convicted of prostitution here in the States.”
“But she had to have a pipeline of women.”
“A pipeline?” The tantalizing whisper that she might not actually be Livia Colton’s daughter faded at the reality of what Hawk suggested.
“One of your mother’s lines of business was human trafficking. It provided her ready supply of prostitutes. And her ring is known to have associated with the mail-order bride scammers, among others.”
“And you think this girl was one of hers?”
“Yes.”
“And you think she was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was enslaved into service to my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I can wrap my head around all of this, how would my mother steal her baby? Why would she even bother?”
“That’s for your mother to know.”
Claudia pulled into the parking lot of the small coffee shop that was their destination. While she couldn’t deny the sincerity of his story, or even the possibility that this young woman had come into her mother’s orbit, the leap to actually being this woman’s child was still shockingly large.
“Annalise gave birth twenty-six years ago. You’re twenty-six, aren’t you?”
“Along with a lot of other people. Yes, it’s a coincidence, but it still doesn’t mean anything.” She cut the ignition and turned to face Hawk. He’d kept that stoic calm throughout their discussion, but there was something in the depths of his vivid blue eyes that captured her. “What is it?”
“There’s one other thing you should know.”
Hawk reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He’d carefully placed an old, faded photograph in the folds of the leather. Her gaze caught on the image even before he handed it over.
But it was the blond hair and bright, vivid smile reflected back at her that had Claudia’s breath catching in her throat. It was like looking at a photo of herself.
“Who is this?”
“That’s Annalise Krupid.”
Chapter 3 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
She was too calm about this. That was all Hawk could settle on as Claudia walked in front of him into the coffeehouse. There had been that one, lone eerie moment in the car when she’d held the photo, her gaze seeming to memorize the image of the woman, only to hand it back, her own face an impassive mask.
Had he gotten through to her?
The photo was hard to argue with—it had been the biggest connection he’d made once he’d seen a photo of Claudia on the Everything’s Blogger in Texas website and made the connection to his case—but it could still be dismissed.
Anything could be dismissed if you refused to believe.
He’d spent two very long years of his life reinforcing that fact. He’d spent the next two trying to do something about it. Regardless of how you handled things—or didn’t—life had a way of smacking you in the ass. And if you didn’t choose to fight against it, it would take you down right along with it.
He’d spent too long in the bottom of that well, helpless.
Hopeless.
Claudia seemed anything but as she placed her order, then turned to him expectantly. “What would you like?”
“Coffee. Room for cream, please.” He already had his wallet out and before she could protest, he added, “It’s the least I can do.”
“Guilt, Mr. Huntley?” She hadn’t said much since climbing out of the car, but he couldn’t fully dismiss the light tease beneath her words.
“Just my good old-fashioned Southern gentlemanly charm.”
“We’ll see about that.” She smiled before moving down to wait for her coffee at the bar.
Once again, he was struck by her beauty. More, by her presence. He’d seen it in the photo—a small one taken from a distance on the Everything’s Blogger post—but was even more captivated by the same since walking into her store. She looked like something out of a fashion magazine, yet as natural and real as the Hill Country that stretched out for miles.
It was a strange juxtaposition. Texas was known for its beautiful women—he’d been fortunate enough to marry one—but there was an artlessness in this woman that drew him in.
Hawk didn’t miss the way the barista looked at Claudia while he built her coffee, his gaze drifting toward her as he juggled the staring with the coffee making. And how could he blame the guy?
Her hair fell around her face in glossy waves and the outfit she wore seemed to highlight every single curve of her body. Even the summer heat that had followed them into the air-conditioned coffeehouse couldn’t wilt her.
How was it possible?
Livia Colton hadn’t managed to spoil her, either. Neither had living in one of the world’s largest cities, working in one of the world’s most competitive industries.
So how was it she could remain calm in the face of her possible parentage, as well? More, how would someone reach adulthood as one person and then just take it on faith when a total stranger suggested it had all been a lie?
He’d assumed she would rant and rail, fighting off his suggestion that she wasn’t Livia Colton’s daughter, but Claudia had been understanding, warm and downright casual about it all.
Had life with her mother been that hard?
Or maybe money went a long way toward paving the path to easy living?
Whatever he supposed, none of it would compare to the reality of growing up in the home of a life-long criminal whose network literally stretched across the globe.
Since making the connection on the Everything’s Blogger in Texas website, Hawk had spent quite a bit of time digging into the Colton family. Livia’s crimes were considerable, holding a candle to Matthew Colton, her serial killer brother. The man had reportedly said that the only person he feared on earth was his half sister Livia.
What did that say about the woman?
Hawk took his own coffee and moved to the small station by the door to doctor it to his preferences. The wide-open window showcased the main street of Whisperwood, its storefronts surprisingly similar to Shadow Creek. A few small shops. A general store. The post office which seemed to share space with a feed and seed.
Small-town Texas life at its very best.
The coffee shop sat at the end of that street. The papers scattered on the small tables nearby appeared well-read and the trash can next to the door was close to full. Coffee had clearly become a good business here in small-town Texas. Fortunately, the rush had died down, the midmorning timing working in their favor.
Claudia had chosen a table in the back, out of earshot of the waitstaff, and he headed in her direction. She’d settled into a fluffy armchair, her gaze focused on her oversize cup.
“This is a nice place.” He settled into an equally cushy chair. “Unexpected, but nice.”
“We could use one in Shadow Creek. The drive over isn’t bad, but I’d like to have my latte fix a bit closer.”
“Do you miss New York?” If it seemed like he was delaying the inevitable discussion, she didn’t appear to mind.
“Some days I miss it terribly. And being here during Fashion Week is going to kill me. But it is nice to be home. And it’s incredibly wonderful to be with my brothers and sisters and Mac again.”
“Mac?”
“I thought you said you read the blog?”
That light tease was there again, yet there was something more in her words. A subtle challenge, as if she wanted to see just how honest he’d be.
“I did read the blog.”
“The sordid life and times of Livia Colton.”
“I suppose.”
Her eyes rose as she lifted her coffee to her lips. “You just suppose?”
“It was an exposé, I’ll grant you that. But I saw a bit more there, as well.”
She snorted at his reference to an exposé, but waved him on. “Do tell.”
“For all the gossip—”
“Sordid gossip,” she reminded him.
“So noted. But for all the digging the reporter did, I took a few things away beyond the story of your mother’s life.”
“Such as?”
Hawk had read the article so many times he nearly had it memorized. And while the first few reads had given him the direction he needed to work the Krupids’ case, making the connection between Livia, Claudia and Annalise, it had been the later rereads of the article that had stuck with him.
Livia’s six children were a unit. Even as the story had painted them—born of different fathers—there was still a sense about the siblings. A closeness. A bond.
Heck, it might have even been the simplicity of shared battle scars growing up under Livia’s influence.
Regardless of the reason, he’d walked away from that article convinced there was a vibrant, well-tended support system that was a by-product of the lives Livia had created, quite likely beyond her intentions.
“You and your siblings are tight. I got that sense.”
“We are.”
“You’re also close with Thorne’s father, Mac.”
She smiled at that, a genuine smile that filled her face, softening the slightly wary edges. “Mac has been a surrogate father to me, too. To my siblings as well, but especially me and my younger sister. He took us in after my mother went to prison. He’s an amazing man and he’s been all the father I’ve ever needed.”
“From all I can see, he’s done a damn fine job.”
“He’s perfect on all counts.” A small frown marred her lips. “Except his willingness to ask Evelyn out.”
“Your store assistant?”
“One and the same. They’re perfect for each other and both are stubbornly resistant to being fixed up.”
He couldn’t hold back the low bark of laughter, or the subtle delight at the clear grimace on her face. “Think you know best for them both?”
“On this I do. They’re bright, wonderful, vibrant people. And there are clear sparks between them on the rare occasion I can manage to get them in the same room. It’s a match. I’m sure of it.”
“Most people like to decide that for themselves.”
“Most people aren’t as stubborn as Mac and Evelyn.”
“Pot? Kettle?” The words fell from his lips, light and easy.
But it was the answering smile that touched something inside of him, lighting a spark of its own.
“Or maybe just the unwavering hopefulness two people I think the world of can find each other and live happily ever after.”
The easy camaraderie faded, her words a swift, harsh reminder that there was no happy ending. No blissful fade into the sunset. He’d believed it once. Hell, he’d had it once. Happy ever after.
Jennifer had even placed a small wooden plaque prominently on their kitchen counter, proclaiming they’d live the rest of their lives that way.
And it had all been shattered in the course of one horrific, haunting evening.
* * *
Claudia knew it the moment she’d overstepped, yet had no idea why. Although she was curious about the photograph Hawk had showed her in the car, she wanted a few moments of equilibrium.
A few quiet moments to process the information that had whirled into her morning, along with an attractive, virile man who tugged at something inside of her she’d believed buried.
Or, at minimum, on hold for a while.
The conversation about her family and the easy shift to Mac and Evelyn had flowed, a fun discussion in a quiet coffeehouse. Yes, it had been a distraction, delaying the inevitable discussion about her mother, but it had been fun. Light.
Sweet, even.
And then he’d seemed to crash.
If it were just the mood change she might have shrugged it off and moved on, but it was the utter bleakness that seemed to cover him. A blizzard-like whiteout of anger and sadness and grief.
“Is something wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Since I believe you about as much as I believe the caramel in this latte isn’t fattening, you might as well tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
His tone was sharp—pointed—yet she didn’t feel threatened. She’d faced that with Ben, especially in the last few months they were together. The change in conversation and the lightning-quick shifts in mood.
She’d learned to fear those moments.
Hawk continued on before she could say anything. “Sorry. I’m sorry. And it’s not nothing, either. I lost my wife a few years ago. There are moments—” He broke off, hesitated. “There are still moments that rear up and remind me. Of her.” A sign he was even less like Ben.
Claudia quickly cycled through their conversation before landing on the moment. “The happily-ever-after part?”
“Yes.”
The images she’d carried all morning—the first few moments in the shop, her impulsive decision to drive him in her car, even the light teasing over coffee—cycled through her mind, as well. Each had combined, leaving an impression of a capable man who was on a determined mission to find her history and heritage.
But it was this man—the vulnerable one with grief and scars and pain—who spoke to her the loudest.
Losing a loved one was always hard, but to lose one’s spouse—their love—and at such a young age... She’d already placed him in his early thirties. The news that he’d lost someone so young was a terrible shock.
“I’m so sorry.” She reached over before she could check the impulse, laying a hand over his. “How long since your wife died?”
“About four years.”
Claudia added the time to her age assessment before nodding. “I am truly sorry.”
The hand beneath hers was warm and solid, exactly what she’d expected when she’d given him the surreptitious glances in the car. When his gaze drifted over that same place, she began to pull her hand back, aware of how quickly she’d leaped to such intimacy.
But as he laid his other hand over hers, she sensed his need for the simple connection.
“Thank you. I don’t talk about my wife much but I usually don’t freeze in the middle of a conversation, either.”
“You’re welcome.”
She debated her next step, but knew the time for the personal had passed. Even if she was curious about his wife and how the woman had died, they weren’t there to explore his past.
Nor did she need that added wrinkle of awareness that whispered across her senses, reminding her Hawk Huntley was single.
“Since you didn’t accompany me here to drink lattes and while away the morning, why don’t we discuss what’s really going on. Namely this family you’re working for.”
“The Krupids.”
“Yes.”
“They’re from Russia but live here now?”
He nodded, the lines that grooved around his eyes fading at the shift in topic. “They do now. They did eventually manage to emigrate from Russia. It was several years after Annalise had vanished, but they’ve never given up hope or the desire to find her.”
“And you’ve not told them what you suspect? About me?”
“No, not yet. They know I’m following leads on their behalf but have given me carte blanche to manage the investigation as I see fit.”
“And you found me because of a blog article?”
That damned article was responsible for more pain than anyone could have imagined. From the initial hurt and damage it caused her sister Leonor, to the broader family embarrassment they’d all suffered because of the exposé on Livia, she’d be happy if she never heard mention of the internet or its contents again.
But what if it was the pathway to your own personal truth?
The question whispered through her mind, more tantalizing than she wanted to admit.
She loved her sisters, brothers and Mac without bounds, but even their love for each other had never been able to assuage that pervasive sense of never belonging. The idea that there was an answer for that—one that went beyond basic embarrassment she’d come from a woman who thought the rules of life simply did not apply to her—was heady.
And far too enticing.
“The blog article was the missing link. I’d had several leads, all centering on sex trafficking, but couldn’t get that last piece.”
“The baby piece?”
“Yes.” He nodded, pulling out his phone and opening up a note-taking app she loved. “Here’s the trail I’ve followed. You can scroll through, but you can see the basic path.”
Claudia took the extended phone, surprised by this facet of his personality, as well. Mobile phones were such personal devices, yet he’d surrendered his as if it was nothing.
“Start at the top?”
“You’re welcome to read all of it, but if you begin at the notation after she left Russia, you can work through the high points.”
The heat of his body was still imprinted on the phone and Claudia did her best to ignore it. Instead, she read the carefully detailed entries, a picture forming in her mind of a young woman, suffering and alone. To have gone from Russia and the only home she’d ever known, essentially kidnapped and moved through the world like a piece of property...
Add on a pregnancy and the loss of her support system and Claudia couldn’t hold back the rising anger.
Or that continued sadness that refused to abate when she thought about all her mother’s bad behavior and all the myriad ways she’d ruined lives. A hundred lifetimes in jail could never fix or repair what she’d damaged.
No, Claudia amended to herself. What she’d broken.
The entries at an end, the photo from the blog his last entry on the screen, she handed back the phone. “You make a convincing argument, I’ll give you that. But it still doesn’t explain why my mother would take on the responsibility for a baby.”
“It can’t be that hard to figure out.”
“What do you mean?”
“All we have to do is ask people if they remember her pregnancy or her behavior at that time.”
“It’s not a secret my mother met my father, Claude, in a whirlwind rush while visiting Europe.”
Hawk persisted. “Yes, but did she completely abandon the young children she had here? I know they’re not close, but would Mac remember?”
“I could ask him.”
“Could you do it now?”
For all she loved Mac, the man didn’t handle surprises well. That went triple when the surprise had anything to do with Livia. She’d worry him unnecessarily if he couldn’t see her face when she asked the question.
“We can go see him, but I’m not calling him with that.”
“Why not? It’s a simple question.”
“Nothing about Mac or his relationship to my mother is simple.”
“I guess I can see that.”
Hawk reached for his coffee, impatience telegraphing off him in waves.
“You want to go this morning?”
A wry, sheepish expression crossed his features. “Can we?”
“Can I finish the errands I came here for?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll swing by his ranch on the way back into Shadow Creek.”
An image of bringing a man home to meet her surrogate father filled her mind’s eye.
And somehow, despite all the surprises they’d suffered over the past few months since her mother’s escape from jail, Claudia figured Hawk’s suspicions were one surprise Mac had never seen coming.
Hell, she had to admit to herself, neither had she.
* * *
She had a protector.
Those words whispered over and over in the mind of the Forgotten One as Claudia traipsed down Main Street.
Wasn’t this a surprise?
The weeks of planning and waiting, plotting and calculating were coming to a close and now she’d found someone to guard her?
Tall and stoic, he had the classic Texas cowboy look down to a T. He even swaggered, his long strides eating up the sidewalk beside the princess. But make no mistake about it; that was no hayseed cowboy walking beside the newly crowned queen of Shadow Creek.
That man was there to watch over her.
The Forgotten One knew that—sensed it—and wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. Or the appreciative look that rode the man’s gaze as he stared at the figure she made as she walked down Main Street.
Which meant months of planning needed to be adjusted. Refined. It was simply a matter of regrouping and reassessing, identifying a new opportunity to get Claudia Colton alone. One of those quiet, early mornings when she let herself into her pretty new shop. Or maybe late at night when she drove herself home from dinner with family.
Or maybe outside her brother’s wedding.
The thought struck, swift and hard as the Forgotten One reassessed.
Regrouped.
And settled on a new plan that was far more exciting than the old.
Chapter 4 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
Acres of farmland spread out before them as Claudia took the turn onto Mackenzie land. Hawk studied the area, assessing as both first-time visitor and as someone who’d read the blog article.
He’d give the writer credit. Of all the things the blog had gotten wrong or insinuated or flat out made up, the beauty of the Mackenzie property wasn’t one of them. Several head of cattle roamed on the front pasture while a horse corral took up a place of prominence on the opposite side of the long driveway. The land was wide-open, yet there was an intimacy, too.
And a fierce pride that reflected from the gleaming fence that rimmed the corral or the perfectly placed posts that made up the enclosure for the cattle. This was a working ranch and, from what Hawk could see, the place hummed.
“He’s probably with the horses this time of day.” Claudia pulled into a small lot on the back side of the barn and cut the ignition. She turned toward him, and for the first time that day Hawk saw real nerves in her expression.
“Let me tell him why we’re here,” Claudia added.
“You think I’m going to blurt it out?”
“No.”
“Then trust me when I tell you I will handle the situation with absolute discretion.”
In the same way his back had stiffened at the coffeehouse, Hawk knew it the moment the conversation shifted.
“Trust you? I don’t know you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s hard enough to trust the people you do know. Of all the things you can ask me, Mr. Huntley, don’t ask that.”
Before he could stop her, she’d sailed out of the car and headed for the big man standing watch from the middle of the corral.
“Well played, Huntley.” He muttered the words to himself before he swung out his side of the car. He ignored the sense of having overstepped and followed her to the corral. The man she lovingly referred to as a father figure already had her in a big bear hug, his smile deep and loving as he laid his head against hers.
Mac Mackenzie.
Hawk filed through the details he knew of the man. Although slim, they all painted the same picture. Mac was a man of his word. Proud and determined, he’d made a home for his son, Thorne, and the rest of Livia Colton’s children, including taking in Claudia and her sister Jade before they turned eighteen.
“And who’s this young man?” The words boomed his direction as Hawk slipped into the corral.
Mac and Claudia had already begun walking toward the fence so Hawk stilled, waiting with an outstretched hand. “Mr. Mackenzie.”
“Most folks call me Mac.” The man extended his hand, his grip firm as Claudia jumped in with the final introductions.
“Hawk paid me a visit this morning. A few things he wanted to discuss about Mom.”
“Oh?” Mac’s eyebrows rose but his dark brown eyes remained hard. Unyielding. “What is this about?”
“I’m a private investigator based out of Houston.” Hawk already had a card out which he handed over. “I’ve been working a cold case for the Krupid family.”
Again, he dropped the name, curious if it would ring any bells. And yet again, he was met with a blank stare and an absolute lack of response.
“You’re a detective?”
“No, sir. I’ve remained in private practice my entire career.”
Mac had tucked the card into his pocket, but pulled it out once more, reviewing the face. “Cards can be faked.”
“They can and I’ve investigated more than a few people who’ve proven that in spades. If it’ll ease your mind, I’m happy to share the references of a Captain Andrew Radner of the Houston PD.”
The card disappeared back into his breast pocket as Mac returned his steady gaze. “I’ll take your word on it for now. What can we do for you, Mr. Huntley?”
Hawk walked Mac through the same details he’d shared with Claudia, saving the picture for the end. From Annalise’s trip out of Russia, to her travels into Mexico and then on into Texas, Mac listened and nodded, adding a few questions where he wanted clarity.
But it was the photo that had the man going still as a block of Texas granite. “This woman looks like you, Claudia.”
“I know.”
Mac wrapped an arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”
Claudia laid her head on Mac’s shoulder, peace and relief welling in her gaze. “Everyone’s got a twin, right?”
The question may have been a grasp at straws, but she wasn’t entirely incorrect. A photograph wasn’t foolproof, nor was a hunch.
“Of course, sweetie.” Mac’s eyes met Hawk’s. “I suppose there are only so many faces in the world.”
“Besides,” she said. “There’s an easy way to figure this out.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell me what you remember about Mom’s pregnancy.”
“She was—” Mac broke off, his gaze narrowing as if he was trying to focus on something far into the distance. “Well now. I suppose I don’t remember that time.”
“What don’t you remember?”
“Any of it. She wasn’t here.”
Claudia stood up straighter, her spine going stiff at Mac’s pronouncement. “Wasn’t here?”
“No. She was in Europe. Came home with you once she came back to Shadow Creek.”
* * *
When she was a small child, Claudia had fallen into the large pool that occupied the back lawn of her mother’s home, La Bonne Vie. She’d been told repeatedly by the housekeeper not to go near the edge because she didn’t know how to swim, but she’d stared at that welcome pool of water day after day, longing to go in.
Good manners and the subtle sense that always pervaded their home of needing to obey in her mother’s domain had kept her away from the pool for several days, but she’d finally given in to the longing one hot afternoon. A small window of opportunity had opened up when the adults had left the room and she’d taken it, slipping into the backyard and heading for the welcome of cold water on a hot summer afternoon.
Claudia had known the moment she broke the surface that she was in trouble. The T-shirt and shorts she still wore wrapped around her, stifling in the way the material instantly clung to her body, and the water, instead of being welcoming, covered her head and face, suffocating in the way it was suddenly everywhere.
She’d tried to scream, only to have that water fill her mouth and every movement—each thrash of her arms and kick of her legs—seemed to drag her farther down instead of buoying her up.
It had been Mac’s shout and the solid hold of his large hands as he pulled her out of the water that she still remembered.
But it was the languid claws of the water that haunted her nightmares, even to this day.
She’d taken lessons, of course. She’d been forced back into that pool to learn, day after day. Her mother had been ruthless about it and the staff had followed her orders, scared to do anything that would smack of defiance or disobedience. But it had been Mac who’d sat by the side of the pool, keeping watch lesson after lesson, to see that she was safe.
That memory wove in and out of her thoughts as she, Hawk and Mac settled into the warm, welcoming kitchen in Mac’s home. The news in the corral had come as a surprise—her mother had spent months away from her family in Europe?—but it was the story that Mac wove that was the real surprise.
“Mac, how is it I don’t know this? I’ve always heard the fanciful story of her European romance, but in what had to be nearly a year to have a relationship and a baby, Mom never came home? How long was she away from Knox, Leonor, River and Thorne?”
“She always claimed she was wrapped up in her whirlwind marriage and then was devastated when it didn’t work out. And it’s not like I spent much time around her, questioning the truth. Not like I’d have gotten it, anyway.” Mac grumbled that last part and it went a long way toward calming the racing thoughts that kept swirling in her mind, finding no purchase.
He was shaken, too. And whatever calm she’d had when Hawk initially shared his suspicions on their drive into Whisperwood, she couldn’t hide the increasing swirl of panic at Mac’s reaction.
“But did she ever say anything about her time away? She always told me she’d had a falling-out with my father.”
“That’s what she claimed. Said Claude was a rebound after divorcing her husband Wes, and that the only good thing she got out of the marriage was you.”
Claudia suspected her mother had said a whole lot more—the divorce from Wes had been in no small part because of her affair with Mac and Thorne’s subsequent birth—but she kept her thoughts to herself. Mac had done his own penance for getting mixed up with her mother and even for all the pain Livia had caused, Claudia knew with everything she was that he’d never trade his son, Thorne. Or the rest of them.
That fierce devotion had only increased—if it was even possible—when Wes had come back last month to exact his misplaced vengeance against Mac. Yet one more by-product of her mother’s hurtful choices.
“Mr. Mackenzie. Did Livia ever say anything to you about that time?” Hawk asked.
After sharing his suspicions about the Krupids’ daughter and her mother’s subsequent actions, Hawk had quieted as Mac recounted what he remembered of that time. It had only been the bombshell about her mother’s time in Europe—her extended time—that had made Claudia finally begin to see the possibilities in Hawk’s suspicions.
For all the gleaming temptation she’d felt at the idea of not being Livia Colton’s daughter, the increasing proof points were something else entirely.
Life just got real, as her brother River was fond of saying.
Very real, she amended.
Anxious to do something, she got up and went to the fridge, pulling out the canister of coffee that sat perpetually full on the bottom shelf. She washed out the dregs from the morning’s brew and started them on a fresh pot. Coffee might not solve the world’s problems, but she’d always suspected that armed with it she was a hell of a lot more prepared to handle what came her way.
The twin expressions of gratitude as she brought mugs, the sugar bowl and a fresh bottle of cream to the table only reinforced the thought.
“That’s my girl.” Mac patted her arm, his touch real and comforting as they both tried to process the truth.
“Tell me about this family, Mr. Huntley. The Krupids, you say?”
Once again, Claudia was struck by the innate kindness in Hawk’s voice and his deep respect for Mac. For all his deliberate purpose in pushing toward a conversation and a quick resolution, he seemed well aware of the tornado he’d unleashed into their lives.
“The Krupids are good people. Quiet people who’ve worked to make a life for themselves here in America.”
Mac stilled from where he doctored his coffee. “Why do you think this?”
“For starters, they were hesitant to come to me. They’ve never given up hope of finding their daughter, but they’d been scammed a few times in the past.”
“Too damned many people who are too quick to prey on others’ misery,” Mac said, his voice quiet.
“Yes, sir. That’s been my experience, as well.” Hawk finished stirring the cream into his mug and continued on. “Even with all their disillusionment, they’d saved more money and were determined to try once more to find some comfort in the loss of Annalise.”
“So why did you take on the case?” Mac asked. “Apart from it being your job. I suppose you have a choice on what cases you take on?”
“Yes, I do. And there was something about the photo of Annalise that captivated me. Something about her parents’ grief, as well. I work cold cases as a personal mission and I knew the moment I heard this one I needed to do something.”
Cold cases?
Was that what she was?
The thought struck with swift, heavy punches, the blows slamming into her with steady force. She’d spent her life as a Colton, yet there was a possibility to someone else—to an entirely different family—she was a mystery to be solved.
A well of pain and sadness that had never been filled.
Whatever had carried her through the morning—the vague sense of unreality at Hawk’s suspicions juxtaposed against the strange reality that had always been her life as a child of Livia Colton—vanished like smoke.
And all that remained was the very real and mounting evidence that her entire life had been a lie.
* * *
Claudia excused herself from the table and headed down the small hallway that speared off the kitchen. Hawk knew she needed space and Mac seemed to sense the same, as both men remained in their seats. Her footsteps faded as quiet filled the kitchen. Hawk took in the hard set of Mac’s features and his hunched shoulders and for the first moment since taking the case, felt shame. What had he done to this family?
He knew the pain of having your world destroyed, ripped away from you with nowhere to land. An unopened parachute of emotion that laid you out flat, killing the life you had and the world as you knew it.
And now he’d done that to these good people.
Whatever he may have imagined in his mind—or fabricated after reading the Everything’s Blogger site—he had to reframe and rethink. The Coltons he had met were good people. And Mac Mackenzie was one of them.
“I’ve brought this on all of you.”
That dark, enigmatic gaze stayed on his, not giving an inch. “Yes, you did.”
“I’m sorry for that. More sorry than I can say.”
That direct stare softened, but didn’t lose any of its power. “Were you serious about what you said? About the Krupids being good people who were given a bad deal.”
“Serious about every word. They just want closure and some sense of relief.”
Something Hawk understood with every fiber of his being.
“I believe you. You strike me as an honest man. The way you talked about that family. The way you look at my daughter.” Mac waved a finger. “And make no mistake about it, that woman is my daughter as sure as if she were born to me.”
“I know it, sir. I can see that.”
“Then answer me something. Why is this case so important to you? There’s a fire in you. I saw it outside when you recounted the story of this young woman’s life. This poor Annalise.”
“I want to make it right.”
“Why? Lots better ways to make a living than hunting down trails that have gone cold. In fact, I’d imagine it’s the worst sort of job for an honest PI trying to make a living.”
“You’re right. And I do take the hot ones that close faster, too.”
“So tell me why. I’ll grant you, the Krupid family deserves answers. I even understand they deserve those answers, whether or not it hurts my family in the process. But you owe me the truth.”
Whatever he was—whatever had brought him to this moment—depended on his honesty. And his willingness to open up. Claudia Colton deserved that.
And so did the people who loved her.
Hawk knew it as surely as he knew he’d been living like a ghost for the past four years. Knew it equally as surely as the fact that he’d felt some sense—some stirring, really—the moment he’d seen Claudia’s photo on that damnable blog post.
“I lost my wife four years ago. She was kidnapped and murdered, then abandoned in a field in a big suburb outside of Houston.”
The words were scratchy—raw—and rarely spoken, but it didn’t make them any less true.
“No one should have to live with that or lose their loved one that way. There’s a sadness in me for your wife, Mr. Huntley. For you, too. A true, deep sadness.”
“Thank you.” He believed Mac, saw the sincerity in the quiet, grooved lines of the man’s face. “I’ve never found who did it. I was on the force at the time and the police worked long and hard, but every lead they pursued went cold. Every damned lead I pursued did the same.”
Hawk drew in a breath, willing himself through the rest of the telling. “It took me two long years to accept that. To pull myself out of an empty life and decide I could die in the bottom of it or I could give Jennifer closure in another way.”
“So you work others’ cases.”
“Others that have a chance of being solved, yes.” Hawk ran a finger over the handle of his mug. “I’m sorry if this news hurts your family. I’m sorry for that, more than I can say. But it’s why I’m here.”
“Livia Colton ruined a lot of lives. She tried to ruin mine and it ripped her a new one when she realized she’d only made mine infinitely better.”
Hawk laughed at the wry smile and the epitaph Mac added to punctuate his point.
“She’s the reason I have my son and the amazing women and men who I think of as my children. Livia gave me that and nothing can take that away. Nothing can change that, including any lies she told along the way. You do what you need to do. You find the truth for this family and you find the truth for my Claudia. She’s tough. She’ll stick.”
“Thank you.” Hawk thought of the woman he’d observed all morning and knew Mac’s words for truth.
“I only have one question for you, then.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you tough? Will you stick?”
“I’ll do both, sir. And I appreciate the opportunity to prove it.”
Chapter 5 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
The bedroom walls had long since been painted over, from cotton candy pink to a soft gray that matched her mood. Claudia had shared this room with her sister Jade, and she could still see the two of them, perched atop their matching bunk beds Mac had built with his own two hands. He’d crafted desks into the bottom portion instead of beds and she and Jade had giggled from their chairs over homework, gossip about boys and all the things young girls worried over.
The beds had been moved over to Knox’s house and his son, Cody, slept in one of them. The sturdy oak had done her and Jade well and it was nice to know another generation of Coltons slept on Mac’s solid and loving work.
Instead of the bunk beds, she sat on the end of a large double, moved in after this became a guest bedroom. She still used it from time to time, as did the rest of her family.
But boy, there were days she missed those bunks.
Life had been confusing back then, in the days after her mother had been arrested, but it had been safe, too. And just like Mac’s soothing presence during her swim lessons, as long as she stayed underneath his roof, she knew no harm would come to her.
The knock came first, quickly followed by that voice. Rich and deep, it sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.
Hawk.
“May I have a minute?”
She waved him in, moving over to give him room on the end of the bed, but he chose to remain standing.
“I’m sorry for what’s happened today.” He held up a hand. “That’s not true. I’m sorry for what happened so many years ago that has made today possible.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I’m the face of it. And I’m the one who owns the responsibility for connecting the dots.”
“Maybe.” She considered the large man who stood in the doorway of her room. The weight of responsibility hovered around him and she saw the genuine grief that he was responsible for finding answers. Odd how that thin layer of regret helped her deal with her new reality.
It was also comforting to know he’d not shown up out of a sense of vengeance or self-righteousness or even some sort of professional mission. So many others—especially in the early days after her mother had first been accused—had marched through town and on into her mother’s home, La Bonne Vie, with a barely veiled sense of glee.
Hawk Huntley had simply shown up to do what was right. To make another family whole.
“Carrying the news doesn’t make it any less true that my mother created those dots.” Claudia laughed, the sound wholly unexpected and sort of creaky as it bubbled to her lips. “If I can even call her my mother anymore.”
“Nothing can change that. Nothing can change your family, Claudia.” Hawk did move forward then, taking the seat next to her on the edge of the bed. The mattress tipped with his weight and she was struck immediately by the warmth of his body and the solid reassurance of having him next to her.
“And even if you were adopted, we don’t know Livia’s reasons for it. Annalise is dead, so you weren’t simply taken from her if she is your mother. Her body was identified when it was delivered to the county morgue in Houston.”
“What was her cause of death?”
“She was never autopsied. And her body was cremated before the Krupids could claim her. But the coroner had photos and the proper proof. She did die.”
“So who rushed through the paperwork? Why wouldn’t the next of kin have been given her body?”
“One more mystery that kept the family certain something else had happened to their daughter.”
“And likely at the hands of one more public official my moth—” she stopped, amended “—Livia paid off.”
Claudia did some quick math. She was twenty-six and Livia wouldn’t have been much older than her at the time of Annalise’s death. Her mother’s crimes had begun at a shockingly tender age, along with her early marriages, the births of her children and her endless string of affairs.
Had love been a part of any of it? She wanted to think better of her mother, but Claudia doubted it. Livia’s string of romances had been about manipulation and greed and money.
The capture of her uncle Matthew had made huge news in Texas after he’d been caught as one of the state’s most notorious serial killers. And even with all he’d done, he’d counted his sister among one of the few people he’d never cross.
What did that say about all her mother was capable of?
“So what comes next?”
“Until your mother escaped from jail, the first step would have been a conversation with her. Since that avenue’s closed to us we need to see what we can find out from others.”
“She wouldn’t tell the truth, even if she was still in jail.”
That fact stung, but Claudia knew it all the same. Matthew had played similar games with his children throughout the long years he’d spent in prison, the withholding of information one more source of power.
Or believed power.
No, Livia would never voluntarily reveal her choices or what she might have done to influence the course of Claudia’s life.
“You believe that?”
“I know it. She can’t be persuaded or cajoled. And there is simply no reasoning with her. If I’m going to get the truth, I’m responsible for finding it.”
“Then a DNA test is the next step.”
“But Annalise is dead. How could we do that?”
“Her parents have mementos. And a small keepsake of her hair from when she was a baby. We have what we need to do the test. But DNA technology is also sophisticated enough to test off the grandparents, as well.”
“Then I guess that’s the next step. I want to know the truth, Hawk. I want answers.”
“Then you can count on me to help you find them.”
Midday sun streamed in through the bedroom window, backlighting him with a golden glow. The attraction she’d done her level best to ignore rose up, heightened by their close proximity and the headiness of the moment.
They’d only just met, yet the power of all they’d shared had such weight. Such tremendous heft.
It was her life. And the lives of several others that had stayed in some sort of imbalanced stasis for far too long.
And this man was finally the one who had the power to shatter that immobility.
Drawn in by the firm lines of his jaw and the stiff set of those broad shoulders, she wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted to pull him close and lose herself for a few glorious moments in time.
How could someone who’d thrown her life into such turmoil seem so appealing? And so very, very right?
* * *
Breath suspended, Hawk stared into warm gray eyes that promised a host of things, from welcome to surrender, to the one emotion that scared him the most.
Redemption.
He didn’t deserve it and never would. He’d once been fortunate enough to have the total trust of another person. More, he’d had the total trust of a woman who believed he’d protect her. Always.
Only he’d failed.
He’d failed to keep her safe. He’d failed as a police officer tasked to keep his community safe. And he’d failed in all the time since, unable to bring Jennifer’s killer to justice.
He had no right seeking redemption or anything else in the eyes—or arms—of Claudia Colton.
More, he had no right taking advantage of her as he did his job.
Standing, he moved away from the bed and the temptation that filled him at their nearness. “I can make the calls about the DNA test. There’s a facility about a half hour from here I’ve used before. All I need is a cheek swab and your permission.”
Confusion replaced the warmth he’d seen in her eyes before they rapidly shuttered, closing off any hint of emotion. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t need to. You don’t need to be involved in this.”
“But I am involved.”
Hawk struggled to come up with something—anything—to push some distance back between them. “No, you’re not. Not unless the test comes back conclusively.”
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Addison Fox
The most shocking Colton family secret yet is revealed!Claudia Colton has always felt different from her siblings. But the fashion designer doesn't expect a PI with knowledge of her family to show up in her tiny home town. The tall, blond stranger on her doorstep announces Claudia might not be the daughter of criminal mastermind Livia Colton…but then who is she?Widower Hawk Huntley, hot on the trail of an old kidnapping case, is stopped in his tracks by Claudia. He vows to protect her in any way possible – heart, body, and soul – as they track down the truth of her identity. But how will Claudia's hidden past – and a gun-wielding stalker – change everything?
The most shocking Colton family secret yet is revealed!
Claudia Colton has always felt different from her siblings. But the fashion designer doesn’t expect a PI with knowledge of her family to show up in her tiny Texas hometown. The tall, blond stranger on her doorstep announces Claudia might not be the daughter of criminal mastermind Livia Colton...but then who is she?
Widower Hawk Huntley, hot on the trail of a cold kidnapping case, is stopped dead in his tracks by Claudia. He vows to protect her in any way possible—heart, body, and soul—as they track down the truth of her identity. But will Claudia’s hidden past—and a gun-wielding stalker—change everything for Colton?
“I’ve only been here a few days, but it’s been long enough to know that anything Colton-related is hot gossip around town.”
Claudia sighed. “Sad truth. But still true all the same.”
“Hey.” He brushed several strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“It’s not insensitive when it’s the truth.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” Hawk traced the shell of her ear before trailing a path down the column of her throat. “But right now I’d really like to kiss you.”
“I’d really like that, too.”
The last vestiges of fear that lingered at the afternoon’s events faded as Hawk lowered his lips to hers. With his body pressed to hers and the door at her back she should have felt claustrophobic.
Trapped.
She felt anything but as she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung.
Simply clung as the touch of his hands, the warmth of his body and the sheer power of his kiss carried her away from all the pain, trouble and confusion that was life in Shadow Creek.
* * *
The Coltons of Shadow Creek:
Only family can keep you safe...
Cold Case Colton
Addison Fox
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ADDISON FOX is a lifelong romance reader, addicted to happy-ever-afters. After discovering she found as much joy writing about romance as she did reading it, she’s never looked back. Addison lives in New York with an apartment full of books, a laptop that’s rarely out of sight and a wily beagle who keeps her running. You can find her at her home on the web at www.addisonfox.com (http://www.addisonfox.com/) or on Facebook (Facebook.com/addisonfoxauthor (https://www.facebook.com/AddisonFoxAuthor/)) and Twitter (@addisonfox (https://twitter.com/addisonfox)).
For Maddie and Vivian
Two of the most wonderful young women I know.
You both own Texas-sized pieces of my heart.
Contents
Cover (#u9da19e52-beca-57c4-9d04-9498784333c0)
Back Cover Text (#uf3f1ed07-2fd1-5801-81f4-47c4b867d293)
Introduction (#u5f54bac5-d933-56b3-b360-15c6e0175c36)
Title Page (#u921c7934-a665-5704-8fba-a30e2cdf12ed)
About the Author (#u4acd1833-8ae3-5c7b-8068-8de21aeb1277)
Dedication (#uf08d65c4-b226-5d83-ac8f-1905570be578)
Chapter 1 (#u9c52cb7e-5fe3-5695-9ff2-9eb587517b7a)
Chapter 2 (#ufcdf88ec-c138-597c-98a1-6cc985022236)
Chapter 3 (#uf6c7c722-8f75-5aad-b5a8-123bfa63463f)
Chapter 4 (#ud94fdf51-443c-5a71-be99-dd00b8321378)
Chapter 5 (#u15b58038-62fe-5deb-9fd1-291250607c72)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
The random bark of a dog and a puttering truck with a rusted out muffler battled each other for prominence in the early morning air. Claudia Colton juggled a to-go cup of coffee in one hand and her keys in the other as she fumbled with the door of her boutique, Honeysuckle Road. Dog and truck faded away as she closed the door, satisfied to simply stop and stare for a moment.
On a soft sigh, she smiled at the racks that spread out before her in welcoming arcs. Bright, vivid silks and bold prints swirled among the racks, offsetting more timeless pieces in soft pastels and classic solids. Her racks spanned all sizes, hidden among them a match for every woman in Shadow Creek, from the petite to the curvaceous and every iteration in between.
“It may be a long way from Fifth Avenue, but it’s mine.”
Shadow Creek, Texas, was a far cry from New York City, but she was determined to make it feel like home.
Bound and determined.
All the work that had gone into renovating the store and the grand opening preparations had diverted her mind for the past few months, and there was something deeply gratifying to see the fruits of her hard work.
Fruits that bore sashes, sequins and the occasional well-placed bow.
And if the life she’d attempted to divert herself from was still a raging mess, well, at least she had a few pretty things to look at while she dealt with it all.
She flipped the lock behind her back and headed for her workroom. Many of the designs at Honeysuckle Road were her own and she’d taken great joy in bringing her visions to life, but no vision quite compared with the wedding dress that had come to life on her dressmakers’ form over the past few weeks.
Claudia had been equally touched and excited when her brother Thorne’s fiancée, Maggie, asked her to make her wedding dress. And she was fast becoming a nervous wreck that the small details she’d envisioned for the dress wouldn’t be completed in time for the wedding.
Wasn’t that a twist?
Maggie was an easygoing bride with an exacting, seamstress-zilla.
Which meant Claudia’s days were filled with quite a few early hours as she worked to finish up the dress.
That also gave her a chance to collect her thoughts. While getting Honeysuckle Road up and running had been a pleasant diversion, it couldn’t change the realities of what she’d run from in New York, or her current situation here in Shadow Creek.
An ex-boyfriend who’d increasingly made the city she loved a nightmare of dark streets, threatening messages and late-night harassments.
And the small town she’d grown up in that seemed to exist in a perpetual state of fear of her mother. Livia’s recent escape, ten years after being put away for multiple lifetimes, had once again gripped the town in her thrall.
Neither situation was tenable.
But what to do about it?
Claudia had innately understood her mother was different. It wasn’t just the unique characteristics that made up her family, from a series of relationships that had produced Livia Colton’s six children. Nor was it simply the large estate that had provided the backdrop to her childhood. No, it was the odd, nearly reverent way the entire town of Shadow Creek treated her mother.
Livia Colton was the town’s patron saint and their resident demon, and everyone treated her with the softest of kid gloves. Livia could do no wrong, even when others suspected her of the worst sorts of crimes.
Theft. Human trafficking. Murder.
Which had left her children to puzzle through the realities of their mother. Was Livia Colton some misunderstood, benevolent benefactor or some demon temptress who used kindness as one more tool in her psychopathic arsenal?
Claudia had spent much of her childhood wondering, only to have the truth finally come out the year she turned sixteen. Her mother’s crimes—all she’d been suspected of and more—had been exposed and she’d been soundly convicted by the State of Texas, sentenced to spend the rest of her life—as well as four more—in prison.
At the time and in all the years since, Claudia had tried desperately to feel some sense of sadness, or remorse or even relief that she and her siblings finally had some answers.
But none came.
Instead, she continued to struggle with this odd sense of indifference that kept her mother at an emotional distance. Separate, somehow, as if they’d never really had a mother-daughter bond at all. Claudia lived with the shame of that—that strange, unapologetic apathy—and used the guilt as a way to push herself forward.
She didn’t feel it for her siblings. Nor did she feel it for Mac, the man who’d practically raised her. So maybe there was hope for her, after all.
Claudia ran a hand over the slender, gathered shoulder strap of the dress. Her brother would marry the woman who wore this dress. The wedding would be hosted on Mac’s ranch. In addition to Thorne, the groom, all her siblings would be there.
Joy filled her at the thought of them all being together and in that, Claudia knew there was strength. Bonds that were forged in truth and honesty and love.
And in that joy, she felt no guilt. No empty ties. Not even a trace of sadness. Instead, she knew she was home.
It couldn’t come at a better time, she thought as she fiddled with the ruching on the shoulder strap, seeking to match its folds to its twin. After nearly ten years in a Texas prison, Livia had found a way to escape.
Her mother’s extensive network of contacts had helped engineer the escape, but it was the events that came after—including the kidnappings of Claudia’s nephew and then Mac just last month—that had proven just what sort of people her mother had surrounded herself with.
Her brother Knox had spent a tense time in an emotional standoff that started with Cody’s kidnapping and ended in the death of one of Livia’s minions. Although her nephew was back, safe and unharmed, neither Claudia nor her siblings had fully rested easy since. The fact that the kidnapping had been the byproduct of an old enemy of her mother’s, using the boy as a pawn to get money Livia would never have paid, had only added to the horror of the situation.
And Mac. Her heart still leaped into her throat at the thought they’d nearly lost him. Livia’s cruelty—and the pain she’d exacted on her third husband—had contributed to the man’s plot against Mac. Thank God they had him back, safe and sound. And through it all, Maggie and Thorne had found each other, as well. A challenging way to begin any relationship, but one that was firm and solid all the same.
One that had also reinforced another truth. Her family needed her and she needed them. And with her mother’s disappearance going on nearly four months, she couldn’t deny her fervent hope the woman would never come back. Livia’s disappearance would finally give them all much-needed peace.
The prison break had proven her mother had established her influence far and wide. But the one thing, if she knew her mother at all, was that there was little Livia Colton wouldn’t do to avoid going back to prison.
Life was calmer without her mother’s presence. That had been as true ten years ago as it was now. And in the months she’d been back in Shadow Creek, she’d had the opportunity to reforge bonds with her siblings. To build an even closer one with Mac. He was still the most wonderful father figure and her time away hadn’t changed their relationship.
Claudia ran a hand down the pale silk of Maggie’s gown, the subtle fall of material plunging from the bodice in a dramatic, almost Grecian sweep. The suggestion of a goddess fit Maggie to a T and her future sister-in-law had been in love with the design from the start.
Now to stop woolgathering and finish it.
She settled her coffee on the edge of her station, far away from any material, and focused on today’s work.
The bustle.
Claudia ran her fingertips over the silk, gathering large folds and pinning them to the areas she’d premarked with small pins. Fold by fold, the bustle came together, the elegant weight forming and reshaping the gown in her hands.
What felt like only moments later Claudia heard a different sort of bustling behind her. “Oh. Oh, wow.”
She turned to find Evelyn Reed, employee number two of Honeysuckle Road and the woman Claudia fondly thought of as her partner in crime.
“What do you think?” She took a few steps back and reached for her coffee, frowning when she realized it had gone cold.
Evelyn already had a fresh cup out of a holder, extended in Claudia’s direction. “I think Thorne’s eyes are going to pop out of his head. We haven’t had a bride this bedecked in Shadow Creek since the Thompson wedding of 2001.”
“Sugar Thompson?”
“One and the same.” Evelyn nodded, walking around the dress, her gaze sharp as she took in the gown from head to toe.
As Claudia recalled, Sugar Thompson’s marriage hadn’t lasted long, nor had union two and three. Last she’d heard the woman was off to California to make her name in Hollywood and Claudia hoped Sugar found what she was looking for.
Shadow Creek wasn’t for everyone. Hell, she’d believed herself well and gone, so it was a surprise to realize how the town was growing on her as an adult.
“Claudia?”
“Hmm?” Claudia looked up from her musings, unwilling to even mention Sugar’s failed marriages in front of the dress. “You see anything I missed, Eagle Eye?”
“Not a single thing. This dress is amazing. The only worry is that Thorne’s not going to make it through the ceremony once he sees his bride coming toward him in this. Between the wedding and Maggie’s pregnancy, Thorne has been floating about five feet off the ground.”
“I could say the same about his daddy and the dress you’re going to wear.”
Evelyn’s dark skin flashed with a decided blush as she busied herself once again around the dressmaker form. Claudia had recently settled in on the idea that Evelyn needed to make a move on Mac—or at least show her interest—but Evelyn had remained steadfast in her reticence.
“My dress is age and station appropriate.” Evelyn’s voice was muffled behind the dress, where she bent over to inspect the bustle.
“What station is that?”
“A widow in her fifties with two grown children, two grandchildren and one more on the way.”
Claudia tapped her friend on the shoulder and waited until Evelyn stood, her petite frame still only reaching Claudia’s shoulder. Waited another moment until Evelyn looked her in the eye.
“You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman who deserves to be happy. Joseph Mackenzie is an amazing man. He practically raised me.”
Evelyn rested a gentle hand against Claudia’s cheek. “A ringing testament to just how amazing he is.”
“Amazing.” Claudia laid her hand over Evelyn’s before going in for the kill. “And as stubborn and shy as you. I swear, the sparks practically erupt when you two get within ten feet of each other.”
Evelyn dropped her hand and busied herself with putting her keys into her purse. “We saw each other once.”
“Twice, including the day Mac stopped in here to drop off lunch.” Claudia popped the lid on the fresh cup of coffee. “There were sparks, I tell you.”
“Old people don’t shoot off anything but gas.” Evelyn wagged a finger as if to emphasize her point before she beelined toward the front counter. “Sparks are for the young.”
Claudia wasn’t so sure about that but she was a woman who knew when and how to pick her battles. Even better, she knew how to bide her time.
She might be stuck in the middle of her own personal dry spell, but there was no way she was giving up on making Evelyn and Mac see just how perfect they were for each other.
* * *
Hawk Huntley tossed a six-dollar tip down on his nine-dollar breakfast at the Cozy Diner and figured he’d still gotten a damn fine deal. The hearty steak and eggs would hold him nearly all day, but it was the side of gossip that had proven even more filling than the prime Texas beef.
He’d arrived in Shadow Creek the night before last and was surprised by how quickly the town gossips were willing to bend his ear. In his experience, most small towns protected their own, but one mention of the Colton family and he got an earful.
He had to play things carefully, but a well-placed question about how he was looking for an old military buddy, River Colton, had done the trick. Hawk knew he needed to work fast because if word found its way back to River that a man he didn’t know was using him to pump the local gossip mill, he’d have hell to pay.
But he needed a sense of things before he could put his plan into motion.
He needed all the information he could find on Livia Colton and her children.
“Now, don’t you go forgetting about our meatloaf special tonight.” The waitress who’d proven so attentive throughout breakfast winked at him from the other side of the counter. “I’ll see to it you get an extra slice.”
“That’s awfully kind of you.”
Based out of Houston, Hawk wasn’t a native Texan but he’d learned early how to adopt the local lingo and attitude. He was a chameleon, his wife had always told him. A man who could fit in and adapt to any situation.
All but one situation, Hawk knew. Losing her wasn’t something a man adapted to. And widower was a suit that even after four years refused to fit.
His waitress picked up the check. “I’ll get you some change.”
“None needed.”
The woman’s eyes lit up at that, brighter than when she was flirting, and Hawk figured he’d best get to his plans for the day. There was no way Patty Sue was keeping her morning conversation with the stranger who’d rolled into Shadow Creek quiet for long.
He headed out of the diner and walked down Main Street. His B&B was at one end of town but it hadn’t taken him more than a few minutes to traverse the town square to reach the diner and, by his calculations, it would be about two more minutes to arrive at his final destination. The Honeysuckle Road boutique.
All the work of the past few months led straight to that front door.
Although he prided himself on being a good PI, Hawk had found his calling working cold cases. To give a family closure—something he’d never been fortunate enough to receive—had gone a long way toward making Jennifer’s death a situation he could live with.
Nothing could erase her memory and no case could bring her back, but if he could give other families the blessed relief that came from knowledge, he could take some solace from the endless questions that still filled his own mind.
“Honeysuckle Road.” He whispered the words as he walked toward the small storefront. Two large windows flanked the front door, but unlike the other businesses that lined Main Street, from the diner, to the drugstore, to a feed store that looked to do a brisk business, these windows were full of vibrant jewel tones and items that screamed “haven for women.”
He might have only been married for three years, but he’d dated Jennifer for two before that and had grown up with two sisters. Women loved color and shape and texture and design and if he wasn’t mistaken, Honeysuckle Road offered all those things and a little something else.
A big, warm welcome that said everyone belonged.
While Patty Sue might have been a bit hesitant to speak about Livia Colton in anything but a hushed whisper, she’d been practically gleeful as she described the new boutique opened by Livia’s daughter Claudia.
A bona fide New Yorker, Patty Sue had said reverently as she described Claudia, who’d left Shadow Creek to go to fashion school in Manhattan. The woman knew how to design clothes, match accessories and put together an outfit any woman would be proud to wear. But the clincher, to Hawk’s mind, was Patty Sue’s description of Claudia’s designs. Claudia Colton made clothes for real women.
Hawk had no idea at the time what that could possibly mean, but now as he looked at the clothing in the window, he suspected it had something to do with a palette of designs that fit women of all shapes and sizes.
And as a man who appreciated women in all shapes and sizes, Hawk decided to like Claudia Colton on the spot.
Pushing through the door, he let his eyes accustom to the darker interior, lit by a wall of soft lights that gave the boutique a warm glow.
He should feel awkward. Or at least ready to turn in his man card, but somehow he felt neither of those things. Instead, all he had was a deep-seated curiosity of how a person could make a room feel so simple yet so rich at the same time.
Since taking this case and narrowing in on the daughter of Livia Colton, Hawk had imagined a cold, calculating woman, much in the same vein as her mother. But the deep colors and rich fabrics and warm, welcoming environment flew in the face of all that.
A pretty, petite woman came out from behind the counter. He got a sense of competence and feminine grace, along with a subtle curiosity as to what he was doing in a fashion boutique at ten in the morning. “You look lost.”
Funny words since he’d felt lost for the past four years. Lost until this case involving Claudia Colton had fallen right into his lap.
The mystery—a child stolen from her birth mother over a quarter century ago—had gripped him for some reason. Those icy fingers of awareness that always ran up and down his spine when he caught a case that moved him had been in full evidence with this one, yet there’d been something more.
Maybe it was the awareness he and Jennifer had been cheated out of their own family and happy-ever-after. Or maybe it was the feeling that she was pushing him toward this case.
He’d always loved the mystery of a cold case, but mystery had turned to mission when he lost his wife. If he was able to help others find answers, in some small way he believed it helped find one for Jennifer, too.
“Sir?” The woman came out from behind the main counter, her smile gentle. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry. Good morning, ma’am. And yes, I think you just might be able to.”
“What can I do, then?”
“I’d like to speak with Claudia Colton.”
Raw curiosity replaced the gentle smile, but she asked no further questions. Instead, she simply nodded. “I’ll just go get her.”
* * *
Claudia reached for the cup of coffee Evelyn had brought in earlier, surprised to realize it had gone cold as she’d once again wrapped herself up in Maggie’s dress. The bustle was coming along nicely, the hidden hooks she’d begun to sew in matching to the precise places she’d pinned up earlier.
Standing, Claudia scrutinized the lines of the dress and the way the gathered material arced into precise folds, neatly pulled up in those small hooks. She hadn’t designed many wedding gowns all the way to completion, but had always loved the process of sketching out all the different ways a woman could attire herself to walk down the aisle. Maggie’s trust in her was both humbling and satisfying, but it was actually seeing the design come to life before her eyes that gave her a strong sense of pride.
Mac had been the one to suggest New York first. He knew her love of fashion and had freely indulged her madness for magazine subscriptions and sketch pads. But it had been the sewing machine he’d bought her shortly after she’d moved into his home that had clinched it.
A fashion mind needs to go where the fashion-minded are, he’d said to her. Just before he pulled one of the thick warm blankets that perpetually lay over the family room couch off the large box that housed her Singer Studio model. The machine had brought endless hours of bliss and madness, frustration and a special sort of creative delight that nothing else in life could quite compare to. She and her Singer were one, the machine an extension of her vision and her dreams.
And Mac had understood that, better than anyone else she’d ever met.
She tossed a fond glance toward the machine’s place of honor in her workroom, right near the window that flooded her studio with light. The best gift she’d ever received.
The knock had her glancing up, breaking through the weight of memories that had seemed to haunt her all morning.
“Yes?”
Evelyn’s breath caught as she took in the dress. “You’ve been busy. And it looks even more amazing than it did a few hours ago.”
“It’s not done yet.”
“Maybe not, but you’re well on your way.” Evelyn waved her hand in a forward motion. “Which means it’s a good time for a quick break and a moment with the gorgeous man standing out front.”
The smile suffusing Evelyn’s face faded almost instantly, a match for the immediate sinkhole that opened in Claudia’s stomach. “Who’s here?”
“A man’s here. What’s wrong?”
He found me. He found me. He found me. The words beat a rapid tattoo in her brain, freezing her breath in her throat.
“Claudia?”
She forced herself to take a breath, her words a whisper when she finally spoke. “What does he look like?”
Even as she asked the question, all she could picture in her mind’s eye was the suave cut of a suit jacket, the artful wave of mahogany hair and dark brown eyes that could go nearly black in anger. Manicured hands and Italian loafers were simply fashionable window dressing when the package underneath was jealous, vengeful and, as of the past six months, increasingly dangerous.
“Tall. Dark blond hair that was likely all-the-way-blond when he was a boy. Sexy blue eyes.”
It was the blond and blue reference that finally penetrated, tugging at the twisted knots of her stomach. “Blue eyes?”
“Blue eyes like a Texas sky, I might add.” Evelyn’s own eyes narrowed. “But that has no bearing on the ghost that just walked over your grave. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Claudia willed her galloping pulse to calm, breathing in and out of her nose. She’d seen Mac gentle his horses with the soft tones of his voice, never sure if they could understand him yet always fascinated when they seemed to. She willed that soft voice into her own mind, trying desperately to find the equilibrium that had just been snatched away.
Trying even more desperately to erase the haunting image of Ben Witherspoon from her mind.
Chapter 2 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
Hawk knew precious little about the world at large. He wasn’t a fashionable man, nor was he particularly concerned with fancy cars or big houses. He cared little for power and cared even less for the trappings of wealth.
But he knew people.
And the woman who stepped out of the back of the Honeysuckle Road boutique wore a haunted look that had no place on a random Thursday morning.
“Miss Colton?”
She gathered herself quickly, that troubled look fading as if it had never been, but Hawk made note of it, regardless. “Yes, how can I help you?”
“My name’s Hawk Huntley. I’d like a word with you, if I may.”
“About?”
Hawk glanced at Evelyn, hovering in the back of the shop. Although her gaze was averted, he had no doubt the woman was on high alert. “It’s a private matter.”
Claudia Colton followed his gaze before hers hardened. “Have we met before?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, then, whatever it is, we can discuss it here.”
She had a spine, he’d give her that. And from the photos of her that he’d reviewed online, he’d admittedly expected a bit more spunk and fire. All the more reason the frightened look she’d worn when she’d entered the shop had been a surprise.
“Your call.” It was her call, but Hawk couldn’t help thinking that she’d be sorry the moment he told her his reasons for being there.
What surprised him even more was how sorry he was to be the bearer of bad news. He’d taken the case to help the Krupid family find answers. Although it had taken him a while to work backward through a quarter century of empty threads and the sheer passage of time, it hadn’t changed his willingness to work their case or try to help them.
Bit by bit, he’d combed through the leads that had brought him to Claudia Colton’s door, each one a deliberate step forward.
How humbling, then, to realize the journey might only be beginning.
“How well do you know your mother?”
Her big gray eyes widened before narrowing quickly. “You’re here about my mother?”
“In part.”
“Why don’t we start from the beginning, then. Who are you?”
Hawk produced a card and handed it over. “I’m a private investigator. I have an office in Houston and I’ve been working on a case for the Krupid family for the past few months.”
He deliberately tossed out the Krupid name, curious to see if it registered, but Claudia remained unaffected as she glanced up from the card.
When she said nothing, he continued on. “They lost a daughter many years ago.”
Although confusion stamped her features, the wariness that had ridden her gaze at his arrival had faded in full. “I’m sorry for their loss, Mr. Huntley, but how does that have anything to do with me or my mother?”
“You’re aware of your mother’s ties to the skin trade?”
A flicker of something crossed her face, then vanished nearly as fast as it arrived. “Yes.”
“The Krupids believe their daughter was a part of your mother’s business, enslaved into prostitution.”
He’d expected anger. Perhaps even a bit of denial. What he never expected were the clear signs of remorse and sadness. They filled her face in sympathetic lines and spilled over in the gentling of her voice. “I wish I could say I’m surprised, but my mother ruined many lives. More than I’m sure we can ever fully fathom.”
“You’re aware of your mother’s crimes?”
“Of course. I was a teenager when she went to jail, but I’m well aware of what she’s capable of. Worse, I’m aware of what she’s done.”
From her ties to sex trafficking, to the politicians she’d kept in her pocket, to the tight rein she had over most everything illegal in central Texas, Livia Colton had done enough damage for five lives. Even today, there were rumors she’d only been convicted for about a third of what she was actually responsible for, including several murders that remained unsolved.
Yet even with that knowledge, Hawk was surprised by Claudia’s quiet acceptance.
The still figure captivated him and he paused a moment to simply observe her. She was a beautiful woman. Tall and voluptuous, she had blond hair that cascaded down over her shoulders in a golden glow, matched to gray eyes that could knock a man to his knees. She had a sophistication and grace about her—a refinement, really—that carried her beyond the simplicity of her current situation.
She was a diamond in a town that had very little polish on it. And if he weren’t mistaken, Claudia Colton’s shine came from who she was and the life she’d built for herself, not the life she was born into.
How did someone like this come from a woman like Livia Colton? Although he was still in college when the infamous woman’s crimes had come to light, Hawk could remember the trial. The hunt for answers. And the relatively few details that had ultimately come to light for a woman purported to have such deep roots in criminal activity.
Those details had remained equally sketchy as he began investigating the Krupids’ case. The only reason he’d even connected the Krupid family and the death of their daughter to Livia Colton had been almost a sheer accident. But once he’d made the connection, every line he’d tugged started in the same spot.
Shadow Creek.
The small town nestled in the Texas Hill Country boasted acres of farmland and some of the prettiest land in the entire state. It was also where Livia Colton’s six children had been raised and often made their home.
He’d done his research on all of them. Six siblings, all seemingly fathered by different men. Children who’d grown up in the shadow of a powerful mother and her shady life. Heirs who’d been abandoned by the town, left to fend for themselves when the truth of their mother’s crimes came to light.
Claudia was a product of that. And, Hawk pulled her details from memory, she’d hightailed it out of Shadow Creek at the first opportunity. The moment she turned eighteen, Claudia headed for New York City, earning her degree before starting work in the fashion industry. Her return to Texas was recent and, from what he could see, something she’d embraced.
Yet something didn’t add up.
Why was she back? The young woman’s return to Shadow Creek coincided with her mother’s prison break earlier in the year. And her reunion with her family seemed to have a permanence, especially since she’d become the newest proprietor on the busiest street in Shadow Creek.
“I’m afraid I still don’t know how to help you, Mr. Huntley. Those crimes of my mother’s were put to bed over a decade ago.”
“Do you honestly think the police uncovered everything there was to find?”
“Maybe not, but I hardly have the answers on where they should look.”
“Maybe you do.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve been working this case for the Krupid family for several months now. They want to find answers. They want closure and the chance to still provide for their daughter, Annalise.”
That gray gaze had shuttered, her voice brisk and businesslike. “But I still don’t see how that affects me. Nor, I’m afraid to say, do I understand how her parents can possibly provide for a woman who passed many years ago.”
“By taking care of her child.”
Claudia shook her head. “Now you’re talking in riddles. Whatever my mother was, she wasn’t someone who killed innocent babies, Mr. Huntley. I’m afraid your leads have gone cold.”
He moved in, just a few steps but it was enough to have her eyes going wide, her mouth dropping in a small O. He lowered his voice, unwilling to share every private detail in earshot of her employee.
“If I’m right, and I believe I am, Livia Colton didn’t kill the baby. She took her and told everyone she was hers.”
“I think we’d have known if my mother stole a baby.”
The words were pointed fact, but Hawk didn’t miss the thread of understanding beneath them. Nor did he miss the light quaver in her voice that ensured whatever he said next wasn’t going to be a complete surprise.
“You’re the baby, Ms. Colton. Your mother is Annalise Krupid.”
* * *
“I’m what?”
Claudia had seen her mother pull a fainting spell several times throughout her life. Always dramatic, it was an act sure to bring several people running toward the delicate-boned woman with the features of an angel. She’d marveled at each occurrence, always surprised by the effectiveness of her mother’s show.
And up until now, she’d never had the urge to do the same.
But if there was ever a time to get a case of the vapors, this would have to be it.
“If my suspicions are correct, you’re Annalise Krupid’s daughter, Ms. Colton.”
“That’s impossible.”
Was it impossible? The question whispered over her senses, even as she caught sight of herself in the framed mirror that took up space behind the checkout counter. She was a big woman—her five-foot-ten frame and solid bone structure at decided odds with the delicate frame of her mother.
Claudia loved her body, but that hadn’t come easy. She’d spent far too many of her teenage years comparing herself to her mother’s small, willowy frame. A frame that good, old-fashioned biology had embedded in the genes of her sisters, Leonor and Jade. Claudia had always been the outlier. And it hadn’t been until she’d discovered fashion, and all the ways to find clothes and makeup, shoes and accessories to highlight every body type, that she’d come to love who she was.
No, she’d never be a waif like her sisters. But she could strut herself with the best of them and she had come to adore the way clothing clung to her hips and rear like a lover’s caress.
It had been at the heart of her focus for Honeysuckle Road and the core sensibility of her designs while living in New York. Every woman was beautiful. True fashion and all its artistry was about making every woman shine.
“Is it really impossible, Ms. Colton?”
The tantalizing belief that she might be someone else—that all the times growing up she’d questioned if she fit into her family might have been for a reason—were thoughts she needed to shut down.
She was a Colton. She’d been one for twenty-six years and in a matter of moments she was ready to throw that all away?
“Of course it is. I’ve lived here my whole life. I have a family—brothers and sisters—and—” She broke off, suddenly aware those things had very little bearing on how she came to actually be a Colton.
“Look, Mr. Huntley, it’s just not possible. For all my mother was, or is,” she quickly corrected herself, “she’s not a kidnapper of infants. Besides, why kidnap one to then raise it on your own? My mother had four children before me and never had a problem carrying a baby to term.”
“Maybe she saw something in you?”
“Another mouth to feed?”
“She’s a wealthy woman,” Hawk shot back, smooth and easy. “I hardly think that would have been a deterrent, do you?”
Nothing was a deterrent to Livia Colton when the woman set her mind on something. Claudia had seen that enough times in her life to know it as fact. More the point, she’d always sensed her mother had led multiple lives, anyway. There was the mother who raised them all, rarely present. On the occasions when she had been around, she’d exhibited a showy, over-the-top affection for her children.
Then there was the Livia Colton who’d contributed so much to Shadow Creek, from building a hospital to running the annual Christmas benefit for the widows and orphans fund, to even ensuring they had top-notch Little League ball fields. She’d set herself up well with the town leaders, and whether it was from a sense of benevolence or an attempt to buy off everyone in close proximity, it hadn’t changed the outcome.
Her mother had made the town a better place.
And then there was the third Livia. The one who’d helped run an enormous crime ring, who managed several nodes on the central Texas drug trade and who had no compunction about killing to get what she wanted.
Her brother Knox had already lived with that reality earlier this year when an associate of her mother’s kidnapped his son. Livia had returned from hiding to kill the man, saving her grandson. While Claudia had wanted to ascribe pure motives to Livia’s actions, Knox had sworn saving his son was a side benefit to killing the man.
Was it possible that Livia—the one who took whatever she wanted without remorse—had stolen a baby, too?
Claudia cast a glance toward the back of the store. While she trusted Evelyn implicitly and knew she’d tell her most everything later, it felt wrong, somehow, to be discussing this there, with an audience. Huntley’s accusations against her mother had far-reaching implications and at the end of the day, this was a family matter.
“Perhaps we can take this up somewhere else over a cup of coffee? You seem well-intentioned, but I hardly think this the right venue for a serious conversation. Especially when foot traffic picks up later this morning.”
She’d gotten a new shipment in the day before and she and Evelyn had spent several hours the prior evening setting up the new stock. They’d already braced themselves for a busy day when the suddenly hungry-for-fashion women of Shadow Creek wended their way into Honeysuckle Road.
A hot man with electric-blue eyes would only add to the excitement. It would also earn her a spot on the week’s hottest gossip list.
“I’m happy to discuss this somewhere else.”
“Let’s go, then. I have an errand I need to run a few towns over in Whisperwood. There’s a coffeehouse on their main street that makes a mean latte.”
“Let’s go.”
He nodded, his smile easy and simple. The small dents of his dimples were contagious and Claudia found herself smiling back before she could check herself. How she’d missed this. That simple connection with a man, fraught with nothing more than basic appreciation and a subtle sense of flirtation.
Ben had taken that from her. He’d second-guessed every kind word she said to someone of the opposite sex, whether it was a waiter, the postman or the old gentleman who’d lived in the apartment two floors above her. No one had been off-limits and over time she’d lost that sense of basic kindness and easy conversation with others.
He’d taken it all away and replaced it with fear and domination and she was so grateful she’d gotten away.
“Let me just tell Evelyn I’m running out.”
“I’ll wait by the door.”
Claudia hesitated a moment as Hawk drifted through the store, his hands by his sides as he navigated through the circular racks of clothing. A lean man, he was still big and there were several places where he turned sideways to avoid brushing along the clothes.
That simple show of respect—for her work and her store—went a long way toward calming the nerves that leaped in her stomach.
But it did nothing to drown out the dread of having one more mess, courtesy of Livia Colton, land on her front doorstep.
* * *
The SUV rumbled to life beneath them, the gentle purr of its engine humming as Claudia settled herself in the driver’s seat. Hawk had quickly acquiesced to her desire to drive and had held the door for her before moving around to the passenger side.
Evelyn had been concerned when Claudia had let her know she was making a quick trip to Whisperwood but hadn’t tried to stop her. Claudia suspected the fact Evelyn had all of the Colton men on speed dial, in addition to Mac, was what kept her from making too big a fuss. Claudia also made a point of leaving Hawk’s card behind so Evelyn had a record of who she’d gone off with.
Even as she questioned herself, Claudia couldn’t deny just how safe she felt in his presence. But it had been impulse that had her offering to drive when he’d headed out of Honeysuckle Road and beelined for his car to follow behind her. She knew she needed to be careful, but nothing about Hawk set off alarms.
Besides, she was curious about him. And while he’d had the element of surprise on his side, she gained significant home court advantage being in her car with her as driver. So she’d offered to drive, pleased when he’d accepted.
The man was a mystery—tall and lean, stoic and enigmatic—yet for all that he wasn’t threatening. She suspected he could be if he tried hard enough, but so far nothing had set off her flight response. In fact, if she were honest, all that enigmatic masculinity had her the tiniest bit captivated.
Okay, a lot captivated.
The ordeal with Ben, followed by the move, had made her swear off men for the better part of the past year. When she then added on the additional year they’d been dating, she hadn’t been actively on the market for quite a while. It was heady to feel that small spark of awareness; to look over and see a man filling her passenger seat, his long, strong fingers working the buckle of his seat belt.
Claudia waved at Evelyn where she stood inside the back doorway of the shop, her lips set in a firm line.
“She seems to have lost her fondness for me.”
“Excuse me?” Claudia put the car into gear, navigating the small lot behind the store she and Evelyn used for parking and where her deliveries came in.
“Evelyn liked me when I walked in. I think she’s changed her mind.”
“The jury’s still out on you, but I’m not worried you’re going to hurt me.” She decided to push a bit. “I’m not wrong about that, am I?”
“Of course not!” The answer flew back across the car with all the force of a rocket. “I may not be in law enforcement, but I collaborate in tandem with them for my work. I’m one of the good guys.”
She couldn’t hold back the small smile. “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, let’s hear more about my supposed past. While I’ll admit it’s an enticing thought to imagine myself not actually Livia’s daughter, I left those fantasies behind when I grew up. The imagined princess just waiting until the time is right to receive her title or the Little Orphan Annie, hanging on until her real parents can come back to find her. Both were a kid’s fantasy, nothing more.”
“You’re awfully easy about this.” His voice was low, whispering between them like smoke.
Was that a small shot of remorse in his tone?
Or was it what she wanted to hear as she tried to process the feminine awareness of him that wasn’t fading? She wanted to ignore the sensual tug but couldn’t quite hold back the subtle awareness that had her nerves on edge.
Delicious nerves, she admitted to herself before coming to a stop at the four-way that led out of town. Willing away the quick flash of desire, she turned fully to face him. “I’ve had a lot of years to come to terms with my mother and her behavior. It’s a hard thing, to think so ill of the woman who raised you, but it doesn’t make the feelings any less true. My mother hurt a lot of people.”
“It’s different, Claudia, when the person she hurt was you.”
“That’s assuming you’re right about all this.”
“I am right.”
His words hung there, stubborn and considerably more solid than whispers of smoke. Hawk Huntley wasn’t a man who liked to be wrong. Most men didn’t, and she had three brothers and a surrogate father who proved that fact each and every day.
But she sensed Hawk’s determination came from somewhere else. That it ran far deeper than stubborn male pride or a desire to be right.
“Okay, then. Convince me. Give me all your reasons why.”
“It all started with your mother’s recent escape from prison.”
The welcome sign for Shadow Creek faded from her rearview mirror as Claudia fought the grimace that threatened at Hawk’s comment. “As good a place to start as any, I suppose.”
“It’s put her back in the spotlight. I remember her case a decade ago—few who lived in Texas at the time have forgotten it—but like anything else in the 24/7 news cycle, life moves on.”
It had moved on. Wasn’t that why she’d gone to New York in the first place? To follow a dream, yes, but it had been something more.
It was a chance to start fresh. New. Unnoticed. An opportunity to start out as a nobody. In the competitive world of fashion, no one cared who you were, they just cared where you were going.
And she’d been going places.
Places that were hell and gone away from Shadow Creek, Texas.
Funny how she’d found her way back anyway.
The thought had dogged her for the past few months. She knew why she was there. Her family needed her. More, she belonged there. But she still hadn’t figured out how the one place on earth she’d believed she’d never return to had been the first place she’d run.
Home?
Or was it something more?
Her entire life people had whispered secrets about her mother. For a long time she’d managed to shut them out, simply pretending they didn’t exist. Then her world had crumbled with Ben’s increasingly menacing behavior and her brother Knox had dealt with the kidnapping of his son.
All of it had combined to pull her home.
“Your mother’s always been big news in Texas—the entire Colton family is—but it was when I saw the blog article about her that I sensed a connection.”
“What blog article? What connection?”
“The Everything’s Blogger in Texas article that came out a few months ago.”
Claudia’s mouth soured at the mention. That article had nearly destroyed her sister Leonor. The betrayal—at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, who’d run to the press with every detail she’d ever shared—had made its way on to one of the biggest gossip blogs in Texas. Although the pain of the blog had oddly been the pathway for Leonor to find her fiancé, Joshua, the article had done sufficient damage to their family.
Worse, it had destroyed Leonor’s self-confidence and sense of security.
“You mean the website that took private information obtained from my sister and broadcast it like it was some sort of fluffy infusion of cotton candy.”
Hawk nodded. “That’s the one.”
“Just wanted to make sure.”
“Even if their ethics should be questioned to the hills and back, it didn’t diminish the information. Or the connection to the Krupid family.”
Claudia came to another four-way stop. The sign for Whisperwood indicated downtown was two miles away. “And this family thinks my mother is involved?”
“The Krupids think nothing other than the fact that their pregnant daughter went missing nearly twenty-seven years ago. I’ve not yet shared this lead as I don’t want to get their hopes up.”
There it was again. That subtle thread of remorse that was layered beneath his words. She genuinely believed he didn’t want to hurt that family.
And why did that streak of compassion strike her as so important? Deeply important, somehow.
“So walk me through this connection.”
“The Krupids tried to leave Russia for many years. During that process, their teenage daughter, Annalise, became familiar with a shady group who’d offered to spirit them out through less legal means, pretending she was a mail-order bride. She’d encouraged her parents to consider the offer, but they were wise to the scam and told her to ignore the vague promises.”
“So how did she end up here?”
“Based on the timing it looks like she got pregnant during that same time and the opportunity to come to the US through shady means suddenly seemed like a way out.”
Despite her skepticism, Claudia could see it. A young woman scared at being discovered, desperate to take the promise of a new life far away. Hadn’t she sought out the same by going to New York? Sure, her reasons were different, but she understood the desire to leave.
To escape.
“Did her parents know she was pregnant?”
“Her mother suspected, but it wasn’t until the days after Annalise vanished that her boyfriend came around looking for her. He shared the news of her pregnancy.”
“It’s a sad story, but I still don’t see what it has to do with my mother. Or me, for that matter.”
“The trail for Annalise goes cold after she was spirited out of Russia and into Mexico. She was one of your mother’s.”
“How’s that even possible?” Although she had no doubt he believed what he said, Claudia knew there were holes in Hawk’s timeline. “My mother was convicted of prostitution here in the States.”
“But she had to have a pipeline of women.”
“A pipeline?” The tantalizing whisper that she might not actually be Livia Colton’s daughter faded at the reality of what Hawk suggested.
“One of your mother’s lines of business was human trafficking. It provided her ready supply of prostitutes. And her ring is known to have associated with the mail-order bride scammers, among others.”
“And you think this girl was one of hers?”
“Yes.”
“And you think she was in the early stages of pregnancy when she was enslaved into service to my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I can wrap my head around all of this, how would my mother steal her baby? Why would she even bother?”
“That’s for your mother to know.”
Claudia pulled into the parking lot of the small coffee shop that was their destination. While she couldn’t deny the sincerity of his story, or even the possibility that this young woman had come into her mother’s orbit, the leap to actually being this woman’s child was still shockingly large.
“Annalise gave birth twenty-six years ago. You’re twenty-six, aren’t you?”
“Along with a lot of other people. Yes, it’s a coincidence, but it still doesn’t mean anything.” She cut the ignition and turned to face Hawk. He’d kept that stoic calm throughout their discussion, but there was something in the depths of his vivid blue eyes that captured her. “What is it?”
“There’s one other thing you should know.”
Hawk reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He’d carefully placed an old, faded photograph in the folds of the leather. Her gaze caught on the image even before he handed it over.
But it was the blond hair and bright, vivid smile reflected back at her that had Claudia’s breath catching in her throat. It was like looking at a photo of herself.
“Who is this?”
“That’s Annalise Krupid.”
Chapter 3 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
She was too calm about this. That was all Hawk could settle on as Claudia walked in front of him into the coffeehouse. There had been that one, lone eerie moment in the car when she’d held the photo, her gaze seeming to memorize the image of the woman, only to hand it back, her own face an impassive mask.
Had he gotten through to her?
The photo was hard to argue with—it had been the biggest connection he’d made once he’d seen a photo of Claudia on the Everything’s Blogger in Texas website and made the connection to his case—but it could still be dismissed.
Anything could be dismissed if you refused to believe.
He’d spent two very long years of his life reinforcing that fact. He’d spent the next two trying to do something about it. Regardless of how you handled things—or didn’t—life had a way of smacking you in the ass. And if you didn’t choose to fight against it, it would take you down right along with it.
He’d spent too long in the bottom of that well, helpless.
Hopeless.
Claudia seemed anything but as she placed her order, then turned to him expectantly. “What would you like?”
“Coffee. Room for cream, please.” He already had his wallet out and before she could protest, he added, “It’s the least I can do.”
“Guilt, Mr. Huntley?” She hadn’t said much since climbing out of the car, but he couldn’t fully dismiss the light tease beneath her words.
“Just my good old-fashioned Southern gentlemanly charm.”
“We’ll see about that.” She smiled before moving down to wait for her coffee at the bar.
Once again, he was struck by her beauty. More, by her presence. He’d seen it in the photo—a small one taken from a distance on the Everything’s Blogger post—but was even more captivated by the same since walking into her store. She looked like something out of a fashion magazine, yet as natural and real as the Hill Country that stretched out for miles.
It was a strange juxtaposition. Texas was known for its beautiful women—he’d been fortunate enough to marry one—but there was an artlessness in this woman that drew him in.
Hawk didn’t miss the way the barista looked at Claudia while he built her coffee, his gaze drifting toward her as he juggled the staring with the coffee making. And how could he blame the guy?
Her hair fell around her face in glossy waves and the outfit she wore seemed to highlight every single curve of her body. Even the summer heat that had followed them into the air-conditioned coffeehouse couldn’t wilt her.
How was it possible?
Livia Colton hadn’t managed to spoil her, either. Neither had living in one of the world’s largest cities, working in one of the world’s most competitive industries.
So how was it she could remain calm in the face of her possible parentage, as well? More, how would someone reach adulthood as one person and then just take it on faith when a total stranger suggested it had all been a lie?
He’d assumed she would rant and rail, fighting off his suggestion that she wasn’t Livia Colton’s daughter, but Claudia had been understanding, warm and downright casual about it all.
Had life with her mother been that hard?
Or maybe money went a long way toward paving the path to easy living?
Whatever he supposed, none of it would compare to the reality of growing up in the home of a life-long criminal whose network literally stretched across the globe.
Since making the connection on the Everything’s Blogger in Texas website, Hawk had spent quite a bit of time digging into the Colton family. Livia’s crimes were considerable, holding a candle to Matthew Colton, her serial killer brother. The man had reportedly said that the only person he feared on earth was his half sister Livia.
What did that say about the woman?
Hawk took his own coffee and moved to the small station by the door to doctor it to his preferences. The wide-open window showcased the main street of Whisperwood, its storefronts surprisingly similar to Shadow Creek. A few small shops. A general store. The post office which seemed to share space with a feed and seed.
Small-town Texas life at its very best.
The coffee shop sat at the end of that street. The papers scattered on the small tables nearby appeared well-read and the trash can next to the door was close to full. Coffee had clearly become a good business here in small-town Texas. Fortunately, the rush had died down, the midmorning timing working in their favor.
Claudia had chosen a table in the back, out of earshot of the waitstaff, and he headed in her direction. She’d settled into a fluffy armchair, her gaze focused on her oversize cup.
“This is a nice place.” He settled into an equally cushy chair. “Unexpected, but nice.”
“We could use one in Shadow Creek. The drive over isn’t bad, but I’d like to have my latte fix a bit closer.”
“Do you miss New York?” If it seemed like he was delaying the inevitable discussion, she didn’t appear to mind.
“Some days I miss it terribly. And being here during Fashion Week is going to kill me. But it is nice to be home. And it’s incredibly wonderful to be with my brothers and sisters and Mac again.”
“Mac?”
“I thought you said you read the blog?”
That light tease was there again, yet there was something more in her words. A subtle challenge, as if she wanted to see just how honest he’d be.
“I did read the blog.”
“The sordid life and times of Livia Colton.”
“I suppose.”
Her eyes rose as she lifted her coffee to her lips. “You just suppose?”
“It was an exposé, I’ll grant you that. But I saw a bit more there, as well.”
She snorted at his reference to an exposé, but waved him on. “Do tell.”
“For all the gossip—”
“Sordid gossip,” she reminded him.
“So noted. But for all the digging the reporter did, I took a few things away beyond the story of your mother’s life.”
“Such as?”
Hawk had read the article so many times he nearly had it memorized. And while the first few reads had given him the direction he needed to work the Krupids’ case, making the connection between Livia, Claudia and Annalise, it had been the later rereads of the article that had stuck with him.
Livia’s six children were a unit. Even as the story had painted them—born of different fathers—there was still a sense about the siblings. A closeness. A bond.
Heck, it might have even been the simplicity of shared battle scars growing up under Livia’s influence.
Regardless of the reason, he’d walked away from that article convinced there was a vibrant, well-tended support system that was a by-product of the lives Livia had created, quite likely beyond her intentions.
“You and your siblings are tight. I got that sense.”
“We are.”
“You’re also close with Thorne’s father, Mac.”
She smiled at that, a genuine smile that filled her face, softening the slightly wary edges. “Mac has been a surrogate father to me, too. To my siblings as well, but especially me and my younger sister. He took us in after my mother went to prison. He’s an amazing man and he’s been all the father I’ve ever needed.”
“From all I can see, he’s done a damn fine job.”
“He’s perfect on all counts.” A small frown marred her lips. “Except his willingness to ask Evelyn out.”
“Your store assistant?”
“One and the same. They’re perfect for each other and both are stubbornly resistant to being fixed up.”
He couldn’t hold back the low bark of laughter, or the subtle delight at the clear grimace on her face. “Think you know best for them both?”
“On this I do. They’re bright, wonderful, vibrant people. And there are clear sparks between them on the rare occasion I can manage to get them in the same room. It’s a match. I’m sure of it.”
“Most people like to decide that for themselves.”
“Most people aren’t as stubborn as Mac and Evelyn.”
“Pot? Kettle?” The words fell from his lips, light and easy.
But it was the answering smile that touched something inside of him, lighting a spark of its own.
“Or maybe just the unwavering hopefulness two people I think the world of can find each other and live happily ever after.”
The easy camaraderie faded, her words a swift, harsh reminder that there was no happy ending. No blissful fade into the sunset. He’d believed it once. Hell, he’d had it once. Happy ever after.
Jennifer had even placed a small wooden plaque prominently on their kitchen counter, proclaiming they’d live the rest of their lives that way.
And it had all been shattered in the course of one horrific, haunting evening.
* * *
Claudia knew it the moment she’d overstepped, yet had no idea why. Although she was curious about the photograph Hawk had showed her in the car, she wanted a few moments of equilibrium.
A few quiet moments to process the information that had whirled into her morning, along with an attractive, virile man who tugged at something inside of her she’d believed buried.
Or, at minimum, on hold for a while.
The conversation about her family and the easy shift to Mac and Evelyn had flowed, a fun discussion in a quiet coffeehouse. Yes, it had been a distraction, delaying the inevitable discussion about her mother, but it had been fun. Light.
Sweet, even.
And then he’d seemed to crash.
If it were just the mood change she might have shrugged it off and moved on, but it was the utter bleakness that seemed to cover him. A blizzard-like whiteout of anger and sadness and grief.
“Is something wrong?”
“Of course not.”
“Since I believe you about as much as I believe the caramel in this latte isn’t fattening, you might as well tell me.”
“It’s nothing.”
His tone was sharp—pointed—yet she didn’t feel threatened. She’d faced that with Ben, especially in the last few months they were together. The change in conversation and the lightning-quick shifts in mood.
She’d learned to fear those moments.
Hawk continued on before she could say anything. “Sorry. I’m sorry. And it’s not nothing, either. I lost my wife a few years ago. There are moments—” He broke off, hesitated. “There are still moments that rear up and remind me. Of her.” A sign he was even less like Ben.
Claudia quickly cycled through their conversation before landing on the moment. “The happily-ever-after part?”
“Yes.”
The images she’d carried all morning—the first few moments in the shop, her impulsive decision to drive him in her car, even the light teasing over coffee—cycled through her mind, as well. Each had combined, leaving an impression of a capable man who was on a determined mission to find her history and heritage.
But it was this man—the vulnerable one with grief and scars and pain—who spoke to her the loudest.
Losing a loved one was always hard, but to lose one’s spouse—their love—and at such a young age... She’d already placed him in his early thirties. The news that he’d lost someone so young was a terrible shock.
“I’m so sorry.” She reached over before she could check the impulse, laying a hand over his. “How long since your wife died?”
“About four years.”
Claudia added the time to her age assessment before nodding. “I am truly sorry.”
The hand beneath hers was warm and solid, exactly what she’d expected when she’d given him the surreptitious glances in the car. When his gaze drifted over that same place, she began to pull her hand back, aware of how quickly she’d leaped to such intimacy.
But as he laid his other hand over hers, she sensed his need for the simple connection.
“Thank you. I don’t talk about my wife much but I usually don’t freeze in the middle of a conversation, either.”
“You’re welcome.”
She debated her next step, but knew the time for the personal had passed. Even if she was curious about his wife and how the woman had died, they weren’t there to explore his past.
Nor did she need that added wrinkle of awareness that whispered across her senses, reminding her Hawk Huntley was single.
“Since you didn’t accompany me here to drink lattes and while away the morning, why don’t we discuss what’s really going on. Namely this family you’re working for.”
“The Krupids.”
“Yes.”
“They’re from Russia but live here now?”
He nodded, the lines that grooved around his eyes fading at the shift in topic. “They do now. They did eventually manage to emigrate from Russia. It was several years after Annalise had vanished, but they’ve never given up hope or the desire to find her.”
“And you’ve not told them what you suspect? About me?”
“No, not yet. They know I’m following leads on their behalf but have given me carte blanche to manage the investigation as I see fit.”
“And you found me because of a blog article?”
That damned article was responsible for more pain than anyone could have imagined. From the initial hurt and damage it caused her sister Leonor, to the broader family embarrassment they’d all suffered because of the exposé on Livia, she’d be happy if she never heard mention of the internet or its contents again.
But what if it was the pathway to your own personal truth?
The question whispered through her mind, more tantalizing than she wanted to admit.
She loved her sisters, brothers and Mac without bounds, but even their love for each other had never been able to assuage that pervasive sense of never belonging. The idea that there was an answer for that—one that went beyond basic embarrassment she’d come from a woman who thought the rules of life simply did not apply to her—was heady.
And far too enticing.
“The blog article was the missing link. I’d had several leads, all centering on sex trafficking, but couldn’t get that last piece.”
“The baby piece?”
“Yes.” He nodded, pulling out his phone and opening up a note-taking app she loved. “Here’s the trail I’ve followed. You can scroll through, but you can see the basic path.”
Claudia took the extended phone, surprised by this facet of his personality, as well. Mobile phones were such personal devices, yet he’d surrendered his as if it was nothing.
“Start at the top?”
“You’re welcome to read all of it, but if you begin at the notation after she left Russia, you can work through the high points.”
The heat of his body was still imprinted on the phone and Claudia did her best to ignore it. Instead, she read the carefully detailed entries, a picture forming in her mind of a young woman, suffering and alone. To have gone from Russia and the only home she’d ever known, essentially kidnapped and moved through the world like a piece of property...
Add on a pregnancy and the loss of her support system and Claudia couldn’t hold back the rising anger.
Or that continued sadness that refused to abate when she thought about all her mother’s bad behavior and all the myriad ways she’d ruined lives. A hundred lifetimes in jail could never fix or repair what she’d damaged.
No, Claudia amended to herself. What she’d broken.
The entries at an end, the photo from the blog his last entry on the screen, she handed back the phone. “You make a convincing argument, I’ll give you that. But it still doesn’t explain why my mother would take on the responsibility for a baby.”
“It can’t be that hard to figure out.”
“What do you mean?”
“All we have to do is ask people if they remember her pregnancy or her behavior at that time.”
“It’s not a secret my mother met my father, Claude, in a whirlwind rush while visiting Europe.”
Hawk persisted. “Yes, but did she completely abandon the young children she had here? I know they’re not close, but would Mac remember?”
“I could ask him.”
“Could you do it now?”
For all she loved Mac, the man didn’t handle surprises well. That went triple when the surprise had anything to do with Livia. She’d worry him unnecessarily if he couldn’t see her face when she asked the question.
“We can go see him, but I’m not calling him with that.”
“Why not? It’s a simple question.”
“Nothing about Mac or his relationship to my mother is simple.”
“I guess I can see that.”
Hawk reached for his coffee, impatience telegraphing off him in waves.
“You want to go this morning?”
A wry, sheepish expression crossed his features. “Can we?”
“Can I finish the errands I came here for?”
“Of course.”
“We’ll swing by his ranch on the way back into Shadow Creek.”
An image of bringing a man home to meet her surrogate father filled her mind’s eye.
And somehow, despite all the surprises they’d suffered over the past few months since her mother’s escape from jail, Claudia figured Hawk’s suspicions were one surprise Mac had never seen coming.
Hell, she had to admit to herself, neither had she.
* * *
She had a protector.
Those words whispered over and over in the mind of the Forgotten One as Claudia traipsed down Main Street.
Wasn’t this a surprise?
The weeks of planning and waiting, plotting and calculating were coming to a close and now she’d found someone to guard her?
Tall and stoic, he had the classic Texas cowboy look down to a T. He even swaggered, his long strides eating up the sidewalk beside the princess. But make no mistake about it; that was no hayseed cowboy walking beside the newly crowned queen of Shadow Creek.
That man was there to watch over her.
The Forgotten One knew that—sensed it—and wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him. Or the appreciative look that rode the man’s gaze as he stared at the figure she made as she walked down Main Street.
Which meant months of planning needed to be adjusted. Refined. It was simply a matter of regrouping and reassessing, identifying a new opportunity to get Claudia Colton alone. One of those quiet, early mornings when she let herself into her pretty new shop. Or maybe late at night when she drove herself home from dinner with family.
Or maybe outside her brother’s wedding.
The thought struck, swift and hard as the Forgotten One reassessed.
Regrouped.
And settled on a new plan that was far more exciting than the old.
Chapter 4 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
Acres of farmland spread out before them as Claudia took the turn onto Mackenzie land. Hawk studied the area, assessing as both first-time visitor and as someone who’d read the blog article.
He’d give the writer credit. Of all the things the blog had gotten wrong or insinuated or flat out made up, the beauty of the Mackenzie property wasn’t one of them. Several head of cattle roamed on the front pasture while a horse corral took up a place of prominence on the opposite side of the long driveway. The land was wide-open, yet there was an intimacy, too.
And a fierce pride that reflected from the gleaming fence that rimmed the corral or the perfectly placed posts that made up the enclosure for the cattle. This was a working ranch and, from what Hawk could see, the place hummed.
“He’s probably with the horses this time of day.” Claudia pulled into a small lot on the back side of the barn and cut the ignition. She turned toward him, and for the first time that day Hawk saw real nerves in her expression.
“Let me tell him why we’re here,” Claudia added.
“You think I’m going to blurt it out?”
“No.”
“Then trust me when I tell you I will handle the situation with absolute discretion.”
In the same way his back had stiffened at the coffeehouse, Hawk knew it the moment the conversation shifted.
“Trust you? I don’t know you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“It’s hard enough to trust the people you do know. Of all the things you can ask me, Mr. Huntley, don’t ask that.”
Before he could stop her, she’d sailed out of the car and headed for the big man standing watch from the middle of the corral.
“Well played, Huntley.” He muttered the words to himself before he swung out his side of the car. He ignored the sense of having overstepped and followed her to the corral. The man she lovingly referred to as a father figure already had her in a big bear hug, his smile deep and loving as he laid his head against hers.
Mac Mackenzie.
Hawk filed through the details he knew of the man. Although slim, they all painted the same picture. Mac was a man of his word. Proud and determined, he’d made a home for his son, Thorne, and the rest of Livia Colton’s children, including taking in Claudia and her sister Jade before they turned eighteen.
“And who’s this young man?” The words boomed his direction as Hawk slipped into the corral.
Mac and Claudia had already begun walking toward the fence so Hawk stilled, waiting with an outstretched hand. “Mr. Mackenzie.”
“Most folks call me Mac.” The man extended his hand, his grip firm as Claudia jumped in with the final introductions.
“Hawk paid me a visit this morning. A few things he wanted to discuss about Mom.”
“Oh?” Mac’s eyebrows rose but his dark brown eyes remained hard. Unyielding. “What is this about?”
“I’m a private investigator based out of Houston.” Hawk already had a card out which he handed over. “I’ve been working a cold case for the Krupid family.”
Again, he dropped the name, curious if it would ring any bells. And yet again, he was met with a blank stare and an absolute lack of response.
“You’re a detective?”
“No, sir. I’ve remained in private practice my entire career.”
Mac had tucked the card into his pocket, but pulled it out once more, reviewing the face. “Cards can be faked.”
“They can and I’ve investigated more than a few people who’ve proven that in spades. If it’ll ease your mind, I’m happy to share the references of a Captain Andrew Radner of the Houston PD.”
The card disappeared back into his breast pocket as Mac returned his steady gaze. “I’ll take your word on it for now. What can we do for you, Mr. Huntley?”
Hawk walked Mac through the same details he’d shared with Claudia, saving the picture for the end. From Annalise’s trip out of Russia, to her travels into Mexico and then on into Texas, Mac listened and nodded, adding a few questions where he wanted clarity.
But it was the photo that had the man going still as a block of Texas granite. “This woman looks like you, Claudia.”
“I know.”
Mac wrapped an arm around Claudia’s shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”
Claudia laid her head on Mac’s shoulder, peace and relief welling in her gaze. “Everyone’s got a twin, right?”
The question may have been a grasp at straws, but she wasn’t entirely incorrect. A photograph wasn’t foolproof, nor was a hunch.
“Of course, sweetie.” Mac’s eyes met Hawk’s. “I suppose there are only so many faces in the world.”
“Besides,” she said. “There’s an easy way to figure this out.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell me what you remember about Mom’s pregnancy.”
“She was—” Mac broke off, his gaze narrowing as if he was trying to focus on something far into the distance. “Well now. I suppose I don’t remember that time.”
“What don’t you remember?”
“Any of it. She wasn’t here.”
Claudia stood up straighter, her spine going stiff at Mac’s pronouncement. “Wasn’t here?”
“No. She was in Europe. Came home with you once she came back to Shadow Creek.”
* * *
When she was a small child, Claudia had fallen into the large pool that occupied the back lawn of her mother’s home, La Bonne Vie. She’d been told repeatedly by the housekeeper not to go near the edge because she didn’t know how to swim, but she’d stared at that welcome pool of water day after day, longing to go in.
Good manners and the subtle sense that always pervaded their home of needing to obey in her mother’s domain had kept her away from the pool for several days, but she’d finally given in to the longing one hot afternoon. A small window of opportunity had opened up when the adults had left the room and she’d taken it, slipping into the backyard and heading for the welcome of cold water on a hot summer afternoon.
Claudia had known the moment she broke the surface that she was in trouble. The T-shirt and shorts she still wore wrapped around her, stifling in the way the material instantly clung to her body, and the water, instead of being welcoming, covered her head and face, suffocating in the way it was suddenly everywhere.
She’d tried to scream, only to have that water fill her mouth and every movement—each thrash of her arms and kick of her legs—seemed to drag her farther down instead of buoying her up.
It had been Mac’s shout and the solid hold of his large hands as he pulled her out of the water that she still remembered.
But it was the languid claws of the water that haunted her nightmares, even to this day.
She’d taken lessons, of course. She’d been forced back into that pool to learn, day after day. Her mother had been ruthless about it and the staff had followed her orders, scared to do anything that would smack of defiance or disobedience. But it had been Mac who’d sat by the side of the pool, keeping watch lesson after lesson, to see that she was safe.
That memory wove in and out of her thoughts as she, Hawk and Mac settled into the warm, welcoming kitchen in Mac’s home. The news in the corral had come as a surprise—her mother had spent months away from her family in Europe?—but it was the story that Mac wove that was the real surprise.
“Mac, how is it I don’t know this? I’ve always heard the fanciful story of her European romance, but in what had to be nearly a year to have a relationship and a baby, Mom never came home? How long was she away from Knox, Leonor, River and Thorne?”
“She always claimed she was wrapped up in her whirlwind marriage and then was devastated when it didn’t work out. And it’s not like I spent much time around her, questioning the truth. Not like I’d have gotten it, anyway.” Mac grumbled that last part and it went a long way toward calming the racing thoughts that kept swirling in her mind, finding no purchase.
He was shaken, too. And whatever calm she’d had when Hawk initially shared his suspicions on their drive into Whisperwood, she couldn’t hide the increasing swirl of panic at Mac’s reaction.
“But did she ever say anything about her time away? She always told me she’d had a falling-out with my father.”
“That’s what she claimed. Said Claude was a rebound after divorcing her husband Wes, and that the only good thing she got out of the marriage was you.”
Claudia suspected her mother had said a whole lot more—the divorce from Wes had been in no small part because of her affair with Mac and Thorne’s subsequent birth—but she kept her thoughts to herself. Mac had done his own penance for getting mixed up with her mother and even for all the pain Livia had caused, Claudia knew with everything she was that he’d never trade his son, Thorne. Or the rest of them.
That fierce devotion had only increased—if it was even possible—when Wes had come back last month to exact his misplaced vengeance against Mac. Yet one more by-product of her mother’s hurtful choices.
“Mr. Mackenzie. Did Livia ever say anything to you about that time?” Hawk asked.
After sharing his suspicions about the Krupids’ daughter and her mother’s subsequent actions, Hawk had quieted as Mac recounted what he remembered of that time. It had only been the bombshell about her mother’s time in Europe—her extended time—that had made Claudia finally begin to see the possibilities in Hawk’s suspicions.
For all the gleaming temptation she’d felt at the idea of not being Livia Colton’s daughter, the increasing proof points were something else entirely.
Life just got real, as her brother River was fond of saying.
Very real, she amended.
Anxious to do something, she got up and went to the fridge, pulling out the canister of coffee that sat perpetually full on the bottom shelf. She washed out the dregs from the morning’s brew and started them on a fresh pot. Coffee might not solve the world’s problems, but she’d always suspected that armed with it she was a hell of a lot more prepared to handle what came her way.
The twin expressions of gratitude as she brought mugs, the sugar bowl and a fresh bottle of cream to the table only reinforced the thought.
“That’s my girl.” Mac patted her arm, his touch real and comforting as they both tried to process the truth.
“Tell me about this family, Mr. Huntley. The Krupids, you say?”
Once again, Claudia was struck by the innate kindness in Hawk’s voice and his deep respect for Mac. For all his deliberate purpose in pushing toward a conversation and a quick resolution, he seemed well aware of the tornado he’d unleashed into their lives.
“The Krupids are good people. Quiet people who’ve worked to make a life for themselves here in America.”
Mac stilled from where he doctored his coffee. “Why do you think this?”
“For starters, they were hesitant to come to me. They’ve never given up hope of finding their daughter, but they’d been scammed a few times in the past.”
“Too damned many people who are too quick to prey on others’ misery,” Mac said, his voice quiet.
“Yes, sir. That’s been my experience, as well.” Hawk finished stirring the cream into his mug and continued on. “Even with all their disillusionment, they’d saved more money and were determined to try once more to find some comfort in the loss of Annalise.”
“So why did you take on the case?” Mac asked. “Apart from it being your job. I suppose you have a choice on what cases you take on?”
“Yes, I do. And there was something about the photo of Annalise that captivated me. Something about her parents’ grief, as well. I work cold cases as a personal mission and I knew the moment I heard this one I needed to do something.”
Cold cases?
Was that what she was?
The thought struck with swift, heavy punches, the blows slamming into her with steady force. She’d spent her life as a Colton, yet there was a possibility to someone else—to an entirely different family—she was a mystery to be solved.
A well of pain and sadness that had never been filled.
Whatever had carried her through the morning—the vague sense of unreality at Hawk’s suspicions juxtaposed against the strange reality that had always been her life as a child of Livia Colton—vanished like smoke.
And all that remained was the very real and mounting evidence that her entire life had been a lie.
* * *
Claudia excused herself from the table and headed down the small hallway that speared off the kitchen. Hawk knew she needed space and Mac seemed to sense the same, as both men remained in their seats. Her footsteps faded as quiet filled the kitchen. Hawk took in the hard set of Mac’s features and his hunched shoulders and for the first moment since taking the case, felt shame. What had he done to this family?
He knew the pain of having your world destroyed, ripped away from you with nowhere to land. An unopened parachute of emotion that laid you out flat, killing the life you had and the world as you knew it.
And now he’d done that to these good people.
Whatever he may have imagined in his mind—or fabricated after reading the Everything’s Blogger site—he had to reframe and rethink. The Coltons he had met were good people. And Mac Mackenzie was one of them.
“I’ve brought this on all of you.”
That dark, enigmatic gaze stayed on his, not giving an inch. “Yes, you did.”
“I’m sorry for that. More sorry than I can say.”
That direct stare softened, but didn’t lose any of its power. “Were you serious about what you said? About the Krupids being good people who were given a bad deal.”
“Serious about every word. They just want closure and some sense of relief.”
Something Hawk understood with every fiber of his being.
“I believe you. You strike me as an honest man. The way you talked about that family. The way you look at my daughter.” Mac waved a finger. “And make no mistake about it, that woman is my daughter as sure as if she were born to me.”
“I know it, sir. I can see that.”
“Then answer me something. Why is this case so important to you? There’s a fire in you. I saw it outside when you recounted the story of this young woman’s life. This poor Annalise.”
“I want to make it right.”
“Why? Lots better ways to make a living than hunting down trails that have gone cold. In fact, I’d imagine it’s the worst sort of job for an honest PI trying to make a living.”
“You’re right. And I do take the hot ones that close faster, too.”
“So tell me why. I’ll grant you, the Krupid family deserves answers. I even understand they deserve those answers, whether or not it hurts my family in the process. But you owe me the truth.”
Whatever he was—whatever had brought him to this moment—depended on his honesty. And his willingness to open up. Claudia Colton deserved that.
And so did the people who loved her.
Hawk knew it as surely as he knew he’d been living like a ghost for the past four years. Knew it equally as surely as the fact that he’d felt some sense—some stirring, really—the moment he’d seen Claudia’s photo on that damnable blog post.
“I lost my wife four years ago. She was kidnapped and murdered, then abandoned in a field in a big suburb outside of Houston.”
The words were scratchy—raw—and rarely spoken, but it didn’t make them any less true.
“No one should have to live with that or lose their loved one that way. There’s a sadness in me for your wife, Mr. Huntley. For you, too. A true, deep sadness.”
“Thank you.” He believed Mac, saw the sincerity in the quiet, grooved lines of the man’s face. “I’ve never found who did it. I was on the force at the time and the police worked long and hard, but every lead they pursued went cold. Every damned lead I pursued did the same.”
Hawk drew in a breath, willing himself through the rest of the telling. “It took me two long years to accept that. To pull myself out of an empty life and decide I could die in the bottom of it or I could give Jennifer closure in another way.”
“So you work others’ cases.”
“Others that have a chance of being solved, yes.” Hawk ran a finger over the handle of his mug. “I’m sorry if this news hurts your family. I’m sorry for that, more than I can say. But it’s why I’m here.”
“Livia Colton ruined a lot of lives. She tried to ruin mine and it ripped her a new one when she realized she’d only made mine infinitely better.”
Hawk laughed at the wry smile and the epitaph Mac added to punctuate his point.
“She’s the reason I have my son and the amazing women and men who I think of as my children. Livia gave me that and nothing can take that away. Nothing can change that, including any lies she told along the way. You do what you need to do. You find the truth for this family and you find the truth for my Claudia. She’s tough. She’ll stick.”
“Thank you.” Hawk thought of the woman he’d observed all morning and knew Mac’s words for truth.
“I only have one question for you, then.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you tough? Will you stick?”
“I’ll do both, sir. And I appreciate the opportunity to prove it.”
Chapter 5 (#u597b5560-eaac-5ed4-85bc-b13fd2296446)
The bedroom walls had long since been painted over, from cotton candy pink to a soft gray that matched her mood. Claudia had shared this room with her sister Jade, and she could still see the two of them, perched atop their matching bunk beds Mac had built with his own two hands. He’d crafted desks into the bottom portion instead of beds and she and Jade had giggled from their chairs over homework, gossip about boys and all the things young girls worried over.
The beds had been moved over to Knox’s house and his son, Cody, slept in one of them. The sturdy oak had done her and Jade well and it was nice to know another generation of Coltons slept on Mac’s solid and loving work.
Instead of the bunk beds, she sat on the end of a large double, moved in after this became a guest bedroom. She still used it from time to time, as did the rest of her family.
But boy, there were days she missed those bunks.
Life had been confusing back then, in the days after her mother had been arrested, but it had been safe, too. And just like Mac’s soothing presence during her swim lessons, as long as she stayed underneath his roof, she knew no harm would come to her.
The knock came first, quickly followed by that voice. Rich and deep, it sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.
Hawk.
“May I have a minute?”
She waved him in, moving over to give him room on the end of the bed, but he chose to remain standing.
“I’m sorry for what’s happened today.” He held up a hand. “That’s not true. I’m sorry for what happened so many years ago that has made today possible.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but I’m the face of it. And I’m the one who owns the responsibility for connecting the dots.”
“Maybe.” She considered the large man who stood in the doorway of her room. The weight of responsibility hovered around him and she saw the genuine grief that he was responsible for finding answers. Odd how that thin layer of regret helped her deal with her new reality.
It was also comforting to know he’d not shown up out of a sense of vengeance or self-righteousness or even some sort of professional mission. So many others—especially in the early days after her mother had first been accused—had marched through town and on into her mother’s home, La Bonne Vie, with a barely veiled sense of glee.
Hawk Huntley had simply shown up to do what was right. To make another family whole.
“Carrying the news doesn’t make it any less true that my mother created those dots.” Claudia laughed, the sound wholly unexpected and sort of creaky as it bubbled to her lips. “If I can even call her my mother anymore.”
“Nothing can change that. Nothing can change your family, Claudia.” Hawk did move forward then, taking the seat next to her on the edge of the bed. The mattress tipped with his weight and she was struck immediately by the warmth of his body and the solid reassurance of having him next to her.
“And even if you were adopted, we don’t know Livia’s reasons for it. Annalise is dead, so you weren’t simply taken from her if she is your mother. Her body was identified when it was delivered to the county morgue in Houston.”
“What was her cause of death?”
“She was never autopsied. And her body was cremated before the Krupids could claim her. But the coroner had photos and the proper proof. She did die.”
“So who rushed through the paperwork? Why wouldn’t the next of kin have been given her body?”
“One more mystery that kept the family certain something else had happened to their daughter.”
“And likely at the hands of one more public official my moth—” she stopped, amended “—Livia paid off.”
Claudia did some quick math. She was twenty-six and Livia wouldn’t have been much older than her at the time of Annalise’s death. Her mother’s crimes had begun at a shockingly tender age, along with her early marriages, the births of her children and her endless string of affairs.
Had love been a part of any of it? She wanted to think better of her mother, but Claudia doubted it. Livia’s string of romances had been about manipulation and greed and money.
The capture of her uncle Matthew had made huge news in Texas after he’d been caught as one of the state’s most notorious serial killers. And even with all he’d done, he’d counted his sister among one of the few people he’d never cross.
What did that say about all her mother was capable of?
“So what comes next?”
“Until your mother escaped from jail, the first step would have been a conversation with her. Since that avenue’s closed to us we need to see what we can find out from others.”
“She wouldn’t tell the truth, even if she was still in jail.”
That fact stung, but Claudia knew it all the same. Matthew had played similar games with his children throughout the long years he’d spent in prison, the withholding of information one more source of power.
Or believed power.
No, Livia would never voluntarily reveal her choices or what she might have done to influence the course of Claudia’s life.
“You believe that?”
“I know it. She can’t be persuaded or cajoled. And there is simply no reasoning with her. If I’m going to get the truth, I’m responsible for finding it.”
“Then a DNA test is the next step.”
“But Annalise is dead. How could we do that?”
“Her parents have mementos. And a small keepsake of her hair from when she was a baby. We have what we need to do the test. But DNA technology is also sophisticated enough to test off the grandparents, as well.”
“Then I guess that’s the next step. I want to know the truth, Hawk. I want answers.”
“Then you can count on me to help you find them.”
Midday sun streamed in through the bedroom window, backlighting him with a golden glow. The attraction she’d done her level best to ignore rose up, heightened by their close proximity and the headiness of the moment.
They’d only just met, yet the power of all they’d shared had such weight. Such tremendous heft.
It was her life. And the lives of several others that had stayed in some sort of imbalanced stasis for far too long.
And this man was finally the one who had the power to shatter that immobility.
Drawn in by the firm lines of his jaw and the stiff set of those broad shoulders, she wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted to pull him close and lose herself for a few glorious moments in time.
How could someone who’d thrown her life into such turmoil seem so appealing? And so very, very right?
* * *
Breath suspended, Hawk stared into warm gray eyes that promised a host of things, from welcome to surrender, to the one emotion that scared him the most.
Redemption.
He didn’t deserve it and never would. He’d once been fortunate enough to have the total trust of another person. More, he’d had the total trust of a woman who believed he’d protect her. Always.
Only he’d failed.
He’d failed to keep her safe. He’d failed as a police officer tasked to keep his community safe. And he’d failed in all the time since, unable to bring Jennifer’s killer to justice.
He had no right seeking redemption or anything else in the eyes—or arms—of Claudia Colton.
More, he had no right taking advantage of her as he did his job.
Standing, he moved away from the bed and the temptation that filled him at their nearness. “I can make the calls about the DNA test. There’s a facility about a half hour from here I’ve used before. All I need is a cheek swab and your permission.”
Confusion replaced the warmth he’d seen in her eyes before they rapidly shuttered, closing off any hint of emotion. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t need to. You don’t need to be involved in this.”
“But I am involved.”
Hawk struggled to come up with something—anything—to push some distance back between them. “No, you’re not. Not unless the test comes back conclusively.”
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Addison Fox
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The most shocking Colton family secret yet is revealed!Claudia Colton has always felt different from her siblings. But the fashion designer doesn′t expect a PI with knowledge of her family to show up in her tiny home town. The tall, blond stranger on her doorstep announces Claudia might not be the daughter of criminal mastermind Livia Colton…but then who is she?Widower Hawk Huntley, hot on the trail of an old kidnapping case, is stopped in his tracks by Claudia. He vows to protect her in any way possible – heart, body, and soul – as they track down the truth of her identity. But how will Claudia′s hidden past – and a gun-wielding stalker – change everything?